+

Would you happen to have the model number for that canopy?

Also, are you going with the flaps, or no?

Thanks!

EJWash

Sure, this is what it says on the invoice:

Curareo 6 X 2 1/2 X 2
Item# C 1117

Merchant
ParkFlyer Plastics
[email protected]

total invoice price with shipping was $6.64

Remember, this canopy is shorter (front to back) than the one shown on the plans. It will require a mod to the turtle deck. A purist may want to keep looking. I haven't decided if I'm that pure yet.

I will go with the flaps/spoilers, with the servos in the wing (outboard of the centerline).

Mitch,

just came across this thread. Nice work so far! I'm hoping to start a Curare from Eureka sometime soon, so I will be following your build closely.

Nice work!
-Peter

Welcome aboard, Peter. I should make good progress this weekend.

Paul,

This canopy is about 1 1/2 inches short. The Eureka kit is definitely based on the MK plan. Don't feel bad about it, it wasn't alot of money, and it can be made to work with little effort.

Mitch

Working on the tail today:

Mitch

1 ½ inches short, looks more like for a 40 size version. I have three other sources for curare canopies, even for original MK curare kits. PM me if you’re interested. Keep up the good work

Well that would explain it. I took another look at Parkflyer Plastics site and this appears to be the only Curare canopy that they have. Now the search is back on.

PM sent.

Maybe check out http://www.klasskotemo.com they say they carry a Curare canope.

Hi,

I have bought Curare canopies from "you know where" site,Germany.

/Bo

Hello Mitch,

Good luck with the building, even though I fly 2m planes now, I always wanted one of those, the Curare was my dream aircraft for years, but never had the money at the time, looking forward to the completed project.

Regards

P.D. Remember in those designs they use to reinforce everything to the overkill point, maybe you could save some weight with the current techniques and building materials and gain some more performance?

Thanks for the interest.

One obvious way to save weight with current techniques would be to make it a fixed gear taildragger. I did that on my Deception practice plane. I also used a four-stroke on the Deception. I want this aircraft to be closer to the original. I'm willing to accept a performance decrease for that.

If you really wanted to apply modern techniques, you could make a mold of the completed fuselage and create a carbon/kevlar version. I don't currently have the skills to do that. I would like to learn these techniques, but not at the risk of this Curare.

Tail is now roughed-in. I thought about building this off of the fuselage, as in 8178's blue angel build, but I felt that this way it was much easier to ensure that everything is aligned.

I know that this will make it much harder to install the pushrods, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Worse case scenario is that I have to create a temporary hatch from the bottom for access.

Oh no, what I mean, is to use thinner wood wherever you can, use of epoxy only where strictly necessary etc, I would not change a classic with carbon or anything else

Oh, yes I see what you mean. This kit is set up to do that somewhat, as the wings of the original kit are to be planked with 2 mm balsa. The Eureka kit uses 1/16 inch sheet.

I avoid using epoxy unless necessary (for glassing or fuel proofing). However, I also avoid CA. I have a mild allergic reaction to CA that produces hives on my arms if I use it for prolonged periods. I'm worried that someday this may get much worse.

I'm using a product called Weldbond on most joints. It is applied by painting a thin layer on each surface and letting it air-dry for a few minutes. The parts stick together but are still positionable for a few more minutes. Pinning or clamping is preferred, but I've had good luck just sticking the parts together as well. When using it for a doubler, you have to clamp the parts together firmly (as can be seen in one of the photos above, the one with the car battery on the table). The Weldbond takes an hour to set, but I'm always able to find some other task to do during that time.

For skinning the wings and stab, I'm using Southern's Sourghum. I hope this is OK to use on a wing that will get fiberglassed and painted. I planned to research that before committing. I suppose I could save weight by doing a film covering on the wings and stab.

i have had great success with sheeting foam/balsa wings with polyurethane glue (gorilla, probond, etc) only a sheen on the foam core is required yet the glue will expand 1/8" - 1/4" into the foam. extremely strong bond.

David,

How much clamping force is required with the gorilla glue method? Would my car battery method (clamping the foam blanks together) work, or do I need more weight than that?

Also, do you roll it on?

The stab is already done with sourghum, so if anyone knows the answer to the question about glassing and painting over a skin bonded with it, I would be interested to know (ie, will it be ok to glass and paint a wing bonded with Southern's Sourghum?).

Mitch

well, i would think that the sorghum wouldn't matter to glass and paint since it's on the other side of the wood skin. if you had enough batteries that method would work. i use a 3-4 foam roller from lowe's and a paper plate. just a little glue spread around and then roll it until a complete sheen is on the foam. you hold it up to the light to make sure your coverage is complete. basically the foam is now just wet, that's all, no need for even the glue color to show anymore. mist your skins with water and assemble back into the cores and then between pieces of mdf. 2-3 batteries over that should be enough. the glue will expand well into the foam.

Starting work on the nose:

The Eureka kit comes with one large block of balsa.

I used to use the Poliurethane glue, Elmer's Probond, very good, actually the best method I have ever used, I tried white glue(aliphatic resin), epoxy and sorghum, but nothing is better than the polyurethane in my opinion..

I used to apply it to the wood and spread it with a piece of scrap balsa plank , it has to be very thin, then spray water on the foam evenly, used a piece of wood or granite at least the size of the wing, and for the weights I used a camping cooler filled with water.

Let it set overnight or 24Hrs.

Mitch,

whether using epoxy or PU, the technique is more or less the same. The idea is to apply abundant amounts of pressure to the stack while curing. I know some love contact cement (Sorghum) but I find it is harder to control the amount of glue due to its viscosity. The cement also is a "4 layer" bond method since it is first layered on to each surface, allowed to dry (thereby bonding to that surface), and then the two cement surfaces are placed into contact (hence the name) and the bonds allowed to "interlink" with each other. I find that this makes for a heavier system.

The epoxy/PU approach is different. While PU has more penetrating power (unlike contact or epoxy), I'm not sure that this is needed (although I'm sure David's wings are rock solid). Not that there is anything wrong with using it. My understanding is that the idea is to prevent the skins from shifting laterally on the cores. This shear resistance is what allows the wing to withstand longitudinal stress (as when coming out of a loop). Things like CF spars help the wing to withstand torsional stress (as in a snap). So with that in mind, the key is to insure that the skins adhere to the cores within a depth of the sheeting thickness (i.e., 1/8" for most 1/16" skinning). Epoxy will do that.

Laminating epoxy (Zap's is great, GP's not so much) flows real nice. It is not gooey at first. You only apply it to your trimmed skins with a brush or roller (I find the brush absorbs less glue and it is expensive) and then once the entire surface is painted you take a CC or Bondo scraper and pass over the skins removing the glue into the container until they appear "wet". The should have a uniform sheen to them. If they appear glossy, you have too much glue. Make sure there are no dry spots.

You then stack your sandwich using wax paper between the shucks and the skins if needed (depends on how clean you were with the glue). Try to remove any epoxy from the external surfaces using alcohol on a finger - once it's dry, it's hard to remove as we know. I prefer to lay out the two wing cores side by side rather than one atop the other. This ensures that if for any reason, the table has a 1/16" (or less) warp to it, hopefully the warp will be symmetric about the panels. If they are stacked, you'll introduce identical left or right wing warps so the wing will not be uniform once you flip one of the panels. Lay them out TE to TE with the roots on the same side of the table.

You can hold the top shuck on with a battery or other weight while you prep the "mother load". Ideally you'd then use something like particle board or better yet, veneered particle board (it's flatter). Make sure your table is strong. Lay the board atop the two cores making sure the shucks haven't slipped - very important. Then find some 100 lbs of "stuff" (the heavier the stuff the better) and distribute it evenly over the top board. I don't think you can add too much weight. It's amazing what foam can withstand! The thing to watch out for are the joints at the LE and TE. The shucks ideally would "curl" around these areas but unfortunately they don't so you have to improvise. Clamps on the LE/TE ends help with this but I tend to be concerned with clamping for reasons of non-uniform pressure on the panels. To me, the more you can spread out the load, the better. You want the same PSI over the entire core.

Leave the mess overnight, remove the load 24 hours later (at least 12) and you'll have very true wings provided your bottom and top surfaces were flat. You can then take a 12" sanding bar and with the wings stacked on top of each other and weighted to symmetry, sand the skins down to the core/shucks. This way you also ensure identical panels.

Perhaps a long winded break down but that's the idea. Give it a try, you'll like it. It's probably a little more time consuming than cement but I think the results are worth it. I suspect your wings will also be lighter.

David.

Sounds like we're all more or less on the same page about this - I guess it just makes sense.

Mitch,

have you thought about the idea of a changable incidence stab? It would be fairly easy on your wood fuse. Tack the halves together, insert in fuse, mark the fuse sides and then produce the necessary innards in each core half (CF tube duct, incidence adjusters, etc.). Once, the stab is then joined and glassed, you cut along the fuse lines, use this as the fuse "plug" and sheet the two core roots - done. Of course you need also a retainer screw into the tube to retain the stabs on.

You could extend the plug slightly to produce a fillet surface.

For best performance, I'd cover the wing and stab panels (it's also less work), control surfaces and paint the fuse and fin. I'll be doing that on the first of the two Tipo's I'm working on (very sloooowly... ).

David.

The answer to the Sorgum and epoxy / glass finish is, it is OK to do. That was a very popular method in the 70's the skins on my Phoenix built in the mid 70's is still tight no lifting of the skins at all. I have a Curare built but not finished in 1977, skinned with Sorgum / 1/16 balsa and 3/4oz glass cloth with epoxy, the plane has been sitting on the shelf since and the wing and stabs are in perfect condition.

BTW, nice build you have going thanks for sharing!