krossk

My Feedback: (27)

PLEASE - there are kids reading![sm=bananahead.gif][sm=bananahead.gif]

bubbagates

My Feedback: (32)

good point....I edited it slightly

krossk

My Feedback: (27)

Whew! I was starting to worry about you for a minute.

elenasgrumpy

My Feedback: (4)

Very nice Ken !! They're gonna love it. You should be really proud of that one![sm=thumbup.gif][sm=thumbup.gif][sm=thumbup.gif]

R T W

Great Job Ken

bubbagates

My Feedback: (32)

I should see it here in Pa also...Hey wait a minute, that's how we can get it to them, we'll just fly it there.

krossk

My Feedback: (27)

You heard him, Ken. Better get started on building those skiis! It'll shine like Rudolph's nose through that blizzard they're having up there!

bruce88123

Fuel tank is too small for that and I don't think Ken is ready for in-flight refueling yet. Anyone have a KC-10 or KC-135 model with a fueling boom? Now that would win Top Gun for sure.

TheParrot

I don't know if your planning to cover this in your build thread Ken, but how do you make the names you put on the side of the fuse? I've always wanted to make a small name (much smaller than yours though) to put by the canopy on my planes but was never sure how!

bruce88123

The following is a business Ken runs on the side.

http://www.rcgraphicszone.com/

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Kevin,
I run a business where I do vinyl cutting. I used a vinyl cutter to cut all of the graphics on this plane.

Ken

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Bruce,
That server is down right now. I'm building a new server for it to host on so I took the site down for a little bit.

Ken

TheParrot

AHA! That would explain it...

carrellh

Ken, the plane looks fantastic. Seabee and his girls should get a ton of enjoyment from this.

farminred

RC ken,

You have done a great job in teaching on this thread!! I have built an LT-40 right along side your thread. you have given a newbie great building tips. Now here is the big Q for you. Will you do the same type of build thread on a guy's second plane such as a 4* 60? LOL Thanks again for all the work you have put into this. this really is a great hobby.

elenasgrumpy

My Feedback: (4)

That would explain why Im still waiting for a quote on those Dragon Lady Graphics [&:], just kidding Ken I know you're busier than a one legged guy in a booty kickin contest.

And oh by the way, I love the chrome wheels, a nice touch to an allready shiny-bright airplane!

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Mark,
Thanks for the wheels compliment, but I can't take credit for those. They came in the kit. I used all the hardware that came in the kit and tried not to substitute anything along the way.

farminred,
I wouldn't mind doing a build like that later on. I have a couple of build projects ready to go on the board as soon as I have it cleaned up and ready to go. After those I might be able to be convinced to build a "2nd plane" type build. We'll see what happens.

Ken

elenasgrumpy

My Feedback: (4)

Ken as we've all allready stated you've done yourself & the whole PIF program extremely proud on this build! I just wanted to add to SeeBee & your daughters that I'm really happy for you. I'm glad the program was able to make this dream a reality for the three of you. Have fun & fly high. I beleive you'll find this expereince will bring you & your daughters even closer together than you allready are. We have a guy at our field who is teaching his girls to fly & they just love it, but even more importantly, their Dad is their absolute heroe!!

P.S. the 10 yr old allready flies better than I do.[&:]

RC Senior

Hi again Ken;
I am at a stand still trying to understand what you are saying about lateral balancing and front and rear balancing.
Are you saying to glue the fin and stabilizer in place as well as hook up all the push rods before balancing,then do the covering of the fuselage,fin and stabilizer as one unit?I didn't want to go any further because as you know,once you glue these things together,it will be hard to get apart.
Thanks again for your help

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

RC Senior,
That is exactly what I am saying. I COMPLETELY assemble the plane, without the covering on or without the receiver and battery mounted. This means everything is in place, the horizontal stabilizer, the vertical stabilizer, the engine, landing gear, cockpit, servos, pushrods, etc..... The only thing I don't put in place is the receiver and the battery, the reason for this is that you can use these items to adjust the actual balance of the plane. I will move the battery and receiver to try and adjust the balance before I add any weight. As I said earlier in the build thread, I had having to cut holes in the covering to add weight when I'm balancing the plane. That's why I balance it like this, so that I can add weight if need be.

Hope this helps

Please feel free to PM me if you have other questions about this.

Ken

MountaineerFan36

Ken my man......that is one awesome looking build! I know that SeaBee and his kids are gonna love it. This hobby has some amazing people in it, and you are a superstar in my book!

rustleruss

My Feedback: (3)

I have been following the thread from day one great job. now can i take my sun glasses off BRIGHT wow again thanks for a great build rcken i know they will love it

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

What is that expression?? The best laid planes of mice and men go astray....? Boy do I ever know that for a fact!! Or more like Murphy has been living in my back pocket for awhile now!! A combination of work, son's school activities, starting a new build (I'm building a Dynaflight Super Decathlon with a Zenoah G-38 if anybody is interested), being sick, and some bad weather have kept me from getting more updated on this thread, but let's see if I can't rectify that some today. In the last couple of steps that we did we mounted the servos in the servo tray and installed the tube for the receiver antenna inside of the fuselage. You may have noticed that when I did the servo tray I mounted the servos in the tray, but I didn't glue the tray into the fuselage yet. There is a good reason why I did this. When it comes time to balance the plane we can actually use the servo tray to help balance the plane. If you look at picture #1 you can see that we actually have a lot of room to mount the servo tray. In some planes you might have very little “wiggle room” as to where to mount the servos, but since we have the extra room in this plane we'll use it to our advantage when it's time to set the balance of the plane. By moving the servo tray forward or backwards we can help achieve what we need to in order to balance the plane. Remember what I said, using weights to shift the balance should be done as a last resort, things like shifting the servo tray accomplish the same thing but don't add any extra weight to the plane. For right now reference the plans and make a mark where the plans show you to place the servo tray. We will set the tray there so that we can mount out pushrod tubes, but with the way the servos are mounted in the tray we will be able to move the tray later on and still have the pushrods mounted in the proper location. So, let's move on to mounting the pushrods now.

If you reference the plans you will notice that there are actually 3 pushrod tubes that will come into the fuselage, the elevator, the rudder, and the throttle pushrods. Right now we are going to worry only about the rudder and elevator pushrod tubes. I will leave the throttle pushrod until after we mount the fuel tank. Since that pushrod runs through the compartment that has the fuel tank I've found that it's usually easier to get the fuel tank mounted first and then run the throttle pushrod, by doing it this way you avoid installing the pushrod in a position that will block the fuel tank from being mounted properly.

Anyway, on to the elevator and the rudder push rods. Looking at picture #2 you can see that the pushrods will mount in the holes that were precut in the fuselage formers, with the elevator pushrod being on the right side of the fuselage and the rudder being on the left side. At the rear of the fuselage the rudder will exit out of the precut slot in the fuselage top, which is at the rear left of the top of fuselage (picture #3). The elevator pushrod never really “exits” the fuselage, but rather is mounted in the hole in the last fuselage former and then ends inside of the fuselage itself and the pushrod then runs out to the elevator control horn. Although picture #3 does show the tube epoxied in place don't glue them in place just yet, this was the only picture I had of the pushrod exiting the fuselage so I used it. The reason why I say to hold up gluing them in place is that I want to add a bit to the design of this plane. If you will look at pictures #4-#8 you will see that there is nothing in the middle of the fuselage to support the pushrods. I don't like this because it allows the pushrods to flex when using them. This isn't good because it can cause a loss of control on the plane. In times when you are moving the control surface the forces of flying can act against the control surface (that's just a fancy way of saying that the wind will push against it ) and if there is room to flex the pushrods will flex instead of moving the control surface. Ok, an honesty moment here. The chances of this happening to any large degree on a trainer are really pretty slim, but I want to show you these things so that you have the knowledge to use on later projects down the road. So here's what we can do to help it. If you look inside the fuselage you will see that there are two formers that the pushrod guides go through but aren't supported by, these are excellent places to add supports too. And adding these supports doesn't require a lot of extra work, just a little planning and a couple of scrap pieces of lite ply wood glued to the two formers inside of the fuselage. Before we go to cutting and drilling we need to have a good idea of the path that the pushrods need to take. This is really pretty easy to do using a ruler and a pencil. Look at pictures #9 and #10 and you can see what I did. Use a ruler to mark the line that the pushrods will take through the fuselage. Don't worry about being exact on this, you just want a general idea so that you can mark and cut the supports for inside of the fuselage. Picture #11 gives you a pretty good idea of what we're going for here, you can see how the lines mark the path the pushrods will take.

Since I'm out of picture space I'll wrap up this post for the moment and continue in the next post.

Pictures
1. Inside of the fuselage. Plenty of room to mount the servo tray.
2. Pushrod guides temporarily mounted in the fuselage former.
3. Pushrods inside of the fuselage
4. Pushrods inside of the fuselage
5. Pushrods inside of the fuselage
6. Pushrods inside of the fuselage
7. Pushrods inside of the fuselage
8. Pushrods inside of the fuselage
9. Marking the route for the pushrod guides
10. Marking the route for the pushrod guides
11. Pushrod routes marked

Until next time

Ken

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Let's continue on with the pushrod installation. Like I said in the last post we want to add some support inside of the fuselage for the pushrod guide tubes. Picture #1 shows on of the sheets that the die-cut parts came in, we'll use this to cut some supports out of. This is why I don't throw out these sheets until after I have finished a plane (I may not throw it out even then, I have a huge box full of scrap wood in my garage!!), they are great for making up things like this during the build. What we want to cut is a couple of pieces of lite ply (the ply will add more support than balsa will) about 3/4”-1” wide and long enough to span the fuselage formers at an diagonal angle (look at picture #3-#6 to get an idea of what to cut). This is what we will use to make our supports. First thing is to draw a line in the middle of the strip, and then we need to mark where the pushrod guides will be. Picture #3 shows me marking the supports. You want to make sure that the pushrod is along the path that you marked in the last step. Be sure that you don't drill these holes that push or pull the guide tube out of position. Don't worry if you don't get it exactly right the first time, just cut another support from your scrap wood and try again. Once you have the supports marked, drill your holes for the guides to go into. One thing to do before you glue the pushrods in place is roughen them up a little bit where the glue will contact them. This helps the glue “grip” the pushrod tubes better and will make for a more secure bond. It's really easy to do. Just put the guides in place and mark where they will will be glued to wood. Then remove the tubes and use a piece sandpaper to roughen up the area where they will glued. When you have them ready you can now slip them over the pushrods and put them in place at each former, pictures #3,#4, and #5 show the support in position ready to be glued in place. Before you glue anything in place make sure you double check everything to make sure it's all in the right place. Trust me, a few extra minutes spend checking will save a lot of time later trying to correct a mistake. When you are satisfied that the extra supports are in the correct place we'll go ahead and glue the push rods in place. This is one of the few instances where I will use 5-minute epoxy. Mix up a little bit of epoxy and put it around the tubes where they meet the supports (pictures #6 and #7), just a little drop is all you need. Where the rudder tube exits from the fuselage is going to need a little bit extra. We need to fill in the gap that is created between the tube and fuselage, here we'll use epoxy and micro balloons/corn starch like we did earlier. Mix up some and use it to fill the gap. In picture #8 you can see how I filled in the gap (yes, there is a little “dimple” left that I failed to get filled. Don't worry, we can fill that in later when we are sanding the plane for finishing).

After the epoxy is dried we can cut off the excess tube for the rudder pushrod that extends out of the fuselage. Use a razor saw to cut off the rudder pushrod guide where it exits the fuselage (picture #9). Don't worry if you don't get it exactly flush when you cut it. Picture #10 shows what it looks like after we cut it. Use a sanding block to sand it down flush with the fuselage (picture #11).

And finally, picture #12 shows the pushrods as they extend into the fuselage. Do not cut these, rather leave them as they are. We will take care of these after we mount our servo tray.

Pictures
1. Use scrap lite ply wood to make supports from
2. Marking supports for drilling.
3. Extra support in place on fuselage former
4. Support in place
5. Support in place
6. Use epoxy to glue pushrod tubes in place
7. Pushrod guides glued in place with epoxy.
8. Use epoxy mixed with micro balloons to fill gap in fuselage at pushrod exit.
9. Use razor saw to cut off excess pushrod tube
10. Pushrod tube after cutting off excess
11. Use a sanding block to sand tube flush with fuselage
12. Inside of fuselage where pushrods enter.

Until next time

Ken

StevL

RCKen,

My son and I are getting ready to start our first RC plane this weekend (Kadet 40 ARF) Although nothing near the construction you did to complete the kit we are excited to get started and learn to fly. We appreciate your build article and we learned some things that should certainly help us finish our ARF. Thank you for a well written and documented article.

Maybe our next plane we will try a kit, it actually looked fun and we are fairly good with our hands. Any suggestions on the net plane (our next step)?

Can you tell we are tail hooked already

Cheers,
Steve

PS: We would love some graphics to make our plane different looking from all the other K40's at our field. Do you have any custom decals for this plane?