StZ

Hi all,

My Nexstar had an unfortunate collision with the ground due to my fingers being lazy! This resulted in a damaged wing, both left and right ends, and with almost half the fuselage. I have recovered all the parts necessary to trace and reproduce for the repair. My questions are the following:

1) Is the fuselage worth repairing?
2) Do I keep the fuselage side that is attached or replace it with a new piece?
3) Where do I cut the fuselage in order to put the new pieces?
4) How do I make the connection between the old and new pieces?
5) What kind of glue should be used? Wood glue, ca, epoxy, other?

Thanks in advance.
StZ

Mr67Stang

You have a good bit of damage. Is it worth fixxing? That depends on what you value. For $63 American you can get a new fusalage. So how much is your time worth? How much is the education you will get from rebuilding it worth? If this will be your first attempt to repair, I recomend you do both. Buy the new fusalage and get backin the air. When it's raining or too windy, work on the rebuild.

StZ

I have to agree with you that $63 is cheap for the damage. But consider that shipping a fuselage to Greece, it doesnt matter where I buy it from, will cost a considerable amount increasing the overall cost. Currently I have plenty of time available so putting several hours into fixing the fuselage is not a problem. Current temperatures are around 95F which prohibits further flying until September/October. This will be my first repair but not my first build. Building a airplane from a kit is different from repairing such an extensive damage. This is my first balsa plane since I make my own spad planes from coroplast.

K-Bob

My Feedback: (1)

If you want to stay indoors until the weather changes, this would be a great project. What's the worst that can happen?You get it finished and aren't satisfied with the outcome, you buy a new fuse.

spaceworm

Since you have the time and experience with SPAD airplane builds, I suggest you make a new fuse from corroplast. I did that with my Nexstar and made some modifications that made it much more flyable. I removed most of the the decalage in the horizontal stab. I also bent the wing joiner rod in the crash and left it so; I turned the rod when I assembled the two halves so that the dihedral was much less than the original design. I also mounted the aileron servos outboard and set in aileron differential with the transmitter to counter the adverse roll I had with the original design.

With all the mods, the Nextar, which I had renamed the Deathstar before the crash, became enjoyable, finally. Here is a picture.

Good luck with your rebuilds.

StZ

If I dont like the outcome I will probably start again. I like kit building.

StZ

I did consider making a coro fuse but I decided to try the balsa one. My first kit build was more than 25 years ago and this would be a great opportunity to start building with balsa again.
Anyway one of the nice things about the Nexstar is the rounded fuselage. Coro plans are welcome if available.

StZ

Forgot to ask you about the dihedral of your Deathstar. How much was reduced? I had the same idea myself but I could not find specs for similar modification.

spaceworm

I never meaasured it, but from the pics, it looks like maybe 1 or 1-1/2 inches total. Here is a link to a discusssion on removing the dihedral of the Nexstar. Should help with your decision. Good luck.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_62...tm.htm#6366587

bigtim

My Feedback: (13)

I crashed my Nextar a few times the worst one looked about as bad as yours StZ I rebuilt it and it flew great for a number of years before I retired it, because the covering had gone bad in some areas and there was some fuel dammage.

I eventually stripped the fuse, repaired some loose areas, and properly replaced some of the balsa sheeting I had pieced together after the crash to complete the rebuild

one thing to check is all the glue joints I found quite a few loose areas after stripping the covering, then after removing the stock gear, I moved them forward to build a tail dragger by land and a float plane conversion,since I had it apart I replaced the stock motor mount and installed a OS61 for more power the floats needed, I am considering putting a 91 Surpass 4st in it so its quieter

the repair didn't cost that much to do just a little time, some wood and a little glue, use as much of the crash debris as you can to make templates like you have been doing and you will have it together in no time my first repair took just a couple of days, the rebuild including the floats about 3 weeks

I also sealed up the hole with wood, where the flight stabilizer was because it was right where my rear float attachment was and it was the first thing I removed and sealed up when I got the plane here is some progress pics I took during the rebuild

StZ

Bigtim
thanks for your photos and comments. I had already downloaded a couple of your photos to help me rebuilding the plane. I have not stripped the cover from the back of the fuse, but I think I will in order to check the rest of the joints as you mentioned. I have already fixed the wings and it is the fuse that is now pending. I will seal the stabilizer hole as well. I have all the necessary material but my main problem is the method that must be used to glue things back together. As I mentioned I do not know if I have to keep the side piece of fuse that is attached or cut it and make a new one to match the other missing side. Also I am not sure which is the best way to glue the new side (the largest missing side) since it has been broken diagonally and it is very close to the former. I have trying to find threads in the forums with photos to help me with this but I have found very little information up to now. So any comments are welcome.

bigtim

My Feedback: (13)

what I did was to first glue the broken side back together using 5min epoxy while carefully holding it in place, without gluing the sides to the formers, I tried to use just enough glue so the wood sides were held in place but not so much to add unnecessary weightwhen the 5 min epoxy is set its tough .

then when that was fully dry I assembled the fuse formers in there proper position using 30 min epoxy and rubber bands to hold the fuse sides together making sure the fuse was strait.

as a final strengthening measure I glued in some thin ply at the cracked area, inside the fuse, where the former and the triangle stock was not covering it, I was also conservative with the glue and cleaned up any excess with paper towels and methanol to keep the weight down less glue and more clamping will make a strong light joint

it is now hanging from electrical conduit in my shop,plastic clothes hangars with foam pipe insulation works great

MrGoodwreck

I sure would like to see how this turned out for you StZ,..

When I was a little kid, I didn't have the money for new R/C planes. I fixed a lot of other peoples crashed trainers found in the trash from the local flying field. Your broken bird looks like something I would have drooled over when I was 12

StZ

It has been a long time since this thread was active and since then I have given a try and fixed the trainer.
It was not easy but it came out OK at the end. I did make some modifications in order to improve its performance. I had the dihedral decreased considerably to about 1/3 of the original (if I remember correctly). I also decreased, to almost zero, the firewall offset since the model had the tendency to go all over the place when taking off. I had the engine installed upside down so as to reduce the oil residue on the plane from the glow and to improve its looks with the nice cover. Finally, I had the landing gear fixed and bolted to a stronger point in the plane just under the windshield and made it a tail dragger.

Not to mention that I had a complete recovering done with new monokote and nicer, for me anyway, color scheme.
I hope at some point to find time and post photos of the rebuilding process.

MrGoodwreck

Thanks for sharing.

StZ

Since this thread has been brought up again I will try and upload some pictures from the repair process.

The following are showing the damage on the leading edge, the formers used and the repair. I did leave as much as I could of the original parts in order to make the wing repair stronger.

StZ

Some more pics of the leading edge and formers repair on the other part of the wing.




The blue plastic on the leading edge is spad material and it was used to take the leading edge shape and help the gluing process by applying some pressure on the balsa.

StZ

Next I went on and repaired the fuselage. The damage was significant. On one side the ply had been broken up to the third former just in front of the servo bay area. On the other side there was damage up to the end of the servo bay.
Once the formers had been copied from the originals they were glued in place. In some photos you can see the balsa joints.

StZ

A small extra piece of ply was used in the back of the servo bay area in order to make the joint stronger since it was right under the wings. I would hate to see the back of the fuse separate from the rest of the plane whilst on a tight turn, loop or roll!!! After gluing all the formers, square balsa was used for support of the fuselage bottom sheeting. Everything has been done in order to follow the original structure of the plane.

StZ

Next was the front of the plane, the firewall and the tank area.
After copying the firewall and the other two formers they were placed in their proper positions and glued. Again all possible parts of the original structure were used.
Square balsa was again used to help gluing the outer sheets of balsa.

StZ

Before covering the bottom of the fuselage I had to insert the landing gear in place. The plane was converted into a tail dragger and the main landing gear was placed in the beginning of the servo bay area, just below the wing leading edge.
Also the engine was mounted up side down and some modifications were made to the front of the model to make it look better.

StZ

Then it was time to prep the model for covering. It was cleaned thoroughly several times using all sorts of liquids, towels, brushes etc. It is very essential to have a clean model as well as environment before starting covering the model.
The bottom side to the tail and wings were covered using the red and white large square pattern monokote. The monokote used was purchased from HK. It has excellent shrinking properties and it is quite strong.

StZ

And here is the finished plane. I also renamed the plane from "Nexstar" to "Death Star".




It has been flown several times after the repair. It has no bad habits since the dihedral was significantly reduced and the firewall offset was almost zero. Take offs are more gentle without the strong tendency to the right. The rudder input does not affect the flight path as much whilst in a turn. Before the repair, I did almost lost it a couple of times due to diving after giving rudder input during turns. Loops and rolls are much better and precise compared to the old version. Also landings are much smoother and the plane just glides in. However I moved on and the plane does not fly at all now since it is a trainer. I do keep it since one day my son will learn to fly with this trainer.

philakapd

This is great!
Thank you for taking the time to share with the community.
Good luck to your son with his maiden flight of the aircraft "Dad built"!

-PD

bigtim

My Feedback: (13)

came across his old thread and figured i would update my adventure with the old trainer after turning it into a float plane it hung from my garage ceiling for several years until we had a little earthquake and it came crashing down, man I hate hangar rash, some damage to the floats currently being repaired, I decided to pull the OS 61 and replace it with a OS 91 4 stroke,I still want it as a float plane but since I have been out of the hobby for a few years I figured I would start with the old trainer and use it as a test bed for my engine rebuilds/retune jobs on my 4 bangers I have collected + I didn't like all the slime from the 61.
so I had to repair the landing gear mount and do a little tweaking to the engine mount kind of excited to get back into the hobby again might have to do the flap conversion after getting some flights under my belt