Dan33klein

Hello,
im looking for some help with a balsa USA 1/4 scale cub wire landing gear kit.

when I received the model. There was just a rubber band mess holding the 2 wire pieces together. They were dry rotten and fell apart. I cannot see how to get new rubber bands on there without un brazing the metal rods. I also need to make new pieces of balsa to go on the sides of the landing gear. How do you attach the wood triangles to the metal gear? It looks like they originally had monokote wrapped around them. I plan on painting the wood this time.
any info is appreciated.

TomCrump

Pics of your landing gear may help you get an answer.

For the triangles, I make mine from lite ply, sand, and epoxy them in place. From there, I use 1/2 oz fiberglass cloth and wrap the wire and wood. Again, epoxy is used. This time, thinned with denatured alcohol. After the weave is filled with a few coats of the thinned epoxy, the LG can be primed and then painted.

spaceworm

I don't know BUSA gear at all. I have H9 and Sig 1/4 Cubs; my H9 has Robart articulated gear. But, can you replace the rubber bands with a coil spring between the gear legs?
Re the filler pieces, I use epoxy and glass, but I use 90% isopropyl (rubbing alcohol) to thin the epoxy, seems to work real well for me. Good luck, you will love your Cub. There is a wealth of info here on RCU just for the asking on Cubs of all sizes and types. Good luck.

Dan33klein

I'll get a picture of the gear in a few minutes. It is the gear they send in the kits. Nothing fancy. I would love to get the robart gear but I can't see spending the money on it. Tower hobbies goes down to 3/4 oz but it is back ordered. Also, what do you use for epoxy? I seen a video of a guy using a minwax product in a bluish can on YouTube. That's what he used to put layers on before sanding.

TomCrump

I use 30 minute epoxy to glue in the filler pieces. Since you will have to, I'd use the epoxy, thinned with alcohol, to do the glassing. The Tower 3/4 oz cloth will be fine.My Spacewalker has landing gear similar to yours. I used this method on it's filler pieces.

Dan33klein

Here is the landing gear. Rubber bands need to go between the two pieces of wire that comes to a point. You would have to take the gear apart and install the rubber bands then braze it back together again from what I can tell. The glass cloth at tower is back ordered. I will try to source some elsewhere.

TomCrump

I don't have pics, but that is the same style as my SW. I used elastic cord to bind those pieces together. That allowed some "give" in the LG, on landings.

Some builders solder a piece of wire, to provide something for rubber bands to attach to. No brazing is necessary, in my view.

Dan33klein

How did you attach the elastic cord onto itself once you wrapped it around?

TomCrump

I used CA..

spaceworm

My SW II has a wire LG, and a three piece wing like your's appears to have. Mine is powered with a Saito FA-130T. What kit is yours and what power? Hope to hear from you.
Sincerely, Richard
AMA 861960
Cub Brotherhood #187; Sig 1/4 (Z23) (Koverall/dope), H9 100 inch (Gen 1) (YS120) (Solartex/?), GB Anniv Cub (NIB)
Club Saito #635; Saito 56, 100, 120abc, 130T, 180
YS F 120;
Sig Kougar, Sig 1/4 Cub, Sig (?) (1/4?) Spacewalker II (Saito FA-130T)

John_M_

Dan33klein, the Sig cub uses a the same rubber band idea as a shock system with their stock gear supplied with the kit... if you want to continues using the same "stock" landing gear; either bend a piece of heavy wire into an "S" shape and then wrap the rubber band around the 2 center braces and then use the "S" hook to hold the ends of the rubber bands together.... or you can get the small "S" hooks at your local hardware store.

Having said that, you would be better off upgrading to the Robart cub landing gear, its a bit pricy... or you could go with the hangar 9 1/4 scale PA18, or J3 landing gear, which is quite a bit cheaper, not as good quality, but usable.... the Hangar 9 PA18 landing gear will work with a fuselage width of 6 1/4" - 6 5/8" wide; I believe the Hangar 9 J3 cub landing gear is little narrower.


John M,

Dan33klein

I will look into upgrading the landing gear, but I will
make a S hook for the time being. Great idea.

John_M_

Make several "S" hooks just in case you break the rubber band on a hard landing; you will loose the "S" hook... I had several "S" hooks in my flight box as spares... unless you can figure out a way to safety wire the "S" hook so it doesn't go flying off if the rubber band does break... you could even silver braze the the hook to the upper brace as well.


John M,

Dan33klein

Thanks John.

next is to do my first glossing job on the balsa triangle fillers in the landing gear

TomCrump

My Spacewalker has a Sachs 4.2.. It's the 1/3 scale version. My 1/4 scale had a 1.60, 4 stroke, twin.

John_M_

When I did my landing gear originally, I filled in the triangles with balsa stock and sanded it down flush, then I put one layer of lite weight fiberglass cloth with 24 hour epoxy, I squeegeed the excess epoxy off and let it set up... gave it a final lite sanding and then covered it with coverite 21st century iron on fabric in cub yellow... the fiberglass cloth really toughened up the surface and helped prevent dings and dents in the balsa triangles.

When I upgraded to the Robart cub gear, all I did was to brush on sig's stix-it on the surface of the metal tubes, then I covered the tube triangles with solartex (I did not fill the triangles with balsa)... then painted the entire landing gear; solartex and all in klasskote cub yellow epoxy paint.


John M,

Dan33klein

I have never had luck with monokote. I have a new hangar 9 iron with a sock. Every time I've tried to patch anything it never turns out like I planned. I've watch some videos on YouTube and they make it look easy.

John_M_

It just takes some practice Dan, getting the iron temp set correctly as well... once you get the hang of it, you can produce some very nice results... I haven't used monokote in years... from what I understand, there has been some changes in the product, but when I first used monokote back a few years, it was surprising how well it went on... patching can be challenging, its all about using the tip of the iron and sealing the perimeter first, keeping as much of the slack out as you go, and then shrink with the heat of the iron and ovoid staying in one place for too long... I had good experience with the iron on 21st century fabric as well... and my recent experience with solartex went just as well, very nice covering.



John M,

Dan33klein

Looks like I need to try the solartex or 21st.. The monokote I bought to patch a spot in this cub doesn't match anyway. I bought a can of cub yellow spray paint at my LHS. I hope it matches close. That's what I'm going to paint the landing gear with.

John_M_

Do you know what covering was used to cover the model?, plastic film, or fabric?"... solatex and 21st century are both fabrics, although the 21 century has less texture to it than solartex... plastic films, you have monokote, ultracote, plus several other off brands.... the monokote "lusterkote" paint will match monokote colors, but will not exactly match other plastic films or fabrics like ultracote, solartex, 21 century, etc... its a PITA to get any paint with a good color match to any iron covering, unless you get it custom mixed... or if you plan on painting the entire model, most will cover with natural solartex, and then spray paint their colors over the natural solatex, so color matching doesn't become an issue.

If you don't know what the model is covered with, you can try taking a wing panel down to your LHS and see what coverings they have, and try to match it up, or see if they can aid you if figuring out what type of covering you need to make your repairs with.


John M,

Dan33klein

John,
i believe it is covered in monokote. Paper thin and brittle. I wish I had the skill to recover the whole model. I ended up painting the landing gear with the luster kote cub yellow spray can I got from my local hobby shop. Even after priming the gear this paint don't cover well at all. After about 3 coats I feel you can still see the gray primer. Probably due to spraying thin wire with an aerosol doesn't work well. I'm going to try to pick up a can of paint than I can brush on and get the coverage. But for now the gear is mounted back on the model. I want to get it back in the air Sunday. Supposed to be low wind and I want to get this big cat broke in some more.
thanks

RBACONS

My Feedback: (3)

Don't blame the paint. Yellow is the worst for achieving color saturation. Its normal to have to put on 2 or 3 more coats of yellow than you would with a darker color. It helps to to use a white primer, rather than grey, or to put down a coat of white paint over the primer before spraying yellow.

Dan33klein

Yes yellow is very hard to get to cover. I'be painted a lot of parts for equipment in John Deere yellow. Same story... But test white paint or primer would have been the ticket. Looks fine for now.

John_M_

Monokote when its new is pretty tough... the only thing with it is, it punchers very easily with small sticks and twigs... ultracote is even thinner than monokote, and punchers just as easily, if not more, but ultracote is easier to apply than monokote.


RBACONS right on the money regarding the white primer, especially when using transparent pigments like yellow... I just recovered my Sig J3, I used white solartex and then painted it with cub yellow "klasskote" epoxy paint... all the small bits, struts, and the cowl were primed with klasskote white primer first, so everything matches pretty good, as long as you apply the same number of coats over everything.

You can blame the EPA for the paint; paint manufactures are forced to us organic pigments, and low LVP / VOC solvents.

Its just a learning process Dan, once you get the hang of it, it just gets better each time you cover and paint something... practice covering some balsa with some scrap pieces of covering, you'll be proficient with it before you know it.




John M,

Dan33klein

I plan on practicing on the covering. I ended up installing the landing gear and put 3 successful flights on the cub the other night. Flies really well. I used some differential in the ailerons,and mixed some rudder in also. Working on the 2nd gallon of fuel in this supertigre, then going down to low nitro/oil fuel I made.