gumhead

Oct. 14th

Sorry for the slow updates. I started on the fuse Friday here are some pics...


Sub assembly of the formers and fuse sides...





Here is the fuse pined upside down over the plans. I checked for square and tacked it with CA and the wing mounts were epoxied in...

gumhead

Oct. 15th

Saturday night I mounted the wing....

nickj

Very nice, gumhead, seems to be going together fast. You ever figure out what engine you're going to use? Reason I ask, I recently crashed my Super Sportster 40 and was looking at replacing it with this plane. The SS was a good flyer with a .46--not great vertical but still fast and plenty of fun. I'm wondering if I'll get similar performance with the CAP. Maybe people reading this thread will have an opinion on it.

Devo

Well, you asked for tips and the time is now. I highly recommend strengthening the gear mount. After having my gear removed by a fast landing on a grass field, I had the chance to rework mine. Using the scrap plywood from the fuselage doubler as a pattern, I made an 1/8" thick plywood tripler that extended from F-3 forward. This gives the landing gear base a larger gluing surface to adhere to. I also added corner gussets where the base meets the tripler.

Also, instead of installing the 8-32 nut insert, install 1/4-20 inserts and use nylon bolts to secure the landing gear. 1/4-20 nylon bolts are more than adequate for this plane, they will withstand any landing the stock landing gear mount will.

gumhead

Oct. 16th

Way ahead of ya Devo
I made a another piece to triple up the side walls and glued everything with 60min epoxy last night. I really went nuts with the epoxy. I put fillets of epoxy all over, I even epoxied under the landing gear brace on the bottom panel. I will take your advice and use nylon bolts instead of the steel. If I do have a real hard landing hopefully the bolt will break before tearing the bottom panel out.

Here are the pics

nickj

You'd think the fuse would have a vertical load-carrier where the LG mounts, instead of a gaping hole in the sides. I guess the triangles at the bottom corners of the hole are supposed to help. In any case, it looks like your doublers and triplers will do the job.

RVman

What rips out the gear is the that a hard landing trys to twist out the gear plate. So what is needed to keep the gear on is something that will withstand the twisting. I added one piece of ply extending from the firewall to the wing mount former which had a slot in it for the gear plate.
I have actually bent the metal gear backwards on a landing in a pothole in our grass field. The gear did not rip off.

Tom

gumhead

Oct. 17th

I glued the wing cap/fillers thingies on tonight. I finally found a good use for my sons yu-gi-oh cards

gumhead

Oct. 18th

Last night I drilled out the landing gear and and replaced the 8-32 tee nuts with 14/-20 tee nuts. This way I can use nylon 1/4-20 screws to hold the gear on (thanks Devo). If there is a hard landing the screws will hopefully snap instead of the landing gear bending or the floor twisting out...

gumhead

I also finished up the wing caps...

gumhead

Push rods tubes were also installed...




Glued with epoxy and micro balloons...




After sanding...

gumhead

Oct. 27th

Wow it's been a while since I've updated this thread. I have been very busy in work lately, Tuesday I worked 13 hours!

I have still been working on the bird tho...


Here is the fuze with the firewall mounted and the glue sparse for the front deck...




Sheeting the front deck...




Glued up and ready for trimming and sanding...

gumhead

The stab was aligned and epoxied on...




Next it was on to the turtledeck. The formers and the glue spares where atached...

gumhead

I took some aggression out this night




Lets hope this chick can fly []

gumhead

I edge glued 3 pieces of balsa for the turtledeck sheeting. Hey nice butt... joints.




Cut to size...



All glued up!

gumhead

She's starting to look like a plane [sm=cool.gif]

nickj

Wow, that's progress! Looks like covering isn't far off.

moneymaker

Looks great!
However, I don't like the pusrods patent going through the balsa. I have one of these on my Goldberg's Eagle and it's very fragile. After a tough landing, one of the pushrods has broke and I had to rip off half a wing to fix it.... I also think that only one servo on the ailerons isn't enough for a plane like this...

Keep updating, I'll keep following the thread closely!

gumhead

Are you talking about the torque rods threw the wing? I have 4 planes that have pretty much the same setup and I have had no problems.


I will be using a high torque digital servo. I have had 2 super sportsters one I used one servo for the wing and the other I used two. I found there was not much difference at all... except paying for another servo and being able to use flaparons which is not needed for this plane. I think the high torque digital will be more then enough, it is only a 40 size plane...

prgonzalez

The issue I have had with torque rods and one servo has flutter. The solution was always to have dual servos, one for each aileron. The issue is torque only when there is a big surface to control.

My 2 cents.

Devo

gumhead, if you're wondering how much your new Saito 91 is going to stick out...

gumhead

Nice!

Is that Metallic Plum? I picked up a can last week, I'm thinking of half white and half metallic plum with metallic green trim for my color scheme.

Did you need any lead in the back with the 91?

nickj

That is one big prop, devo. Isn't this a .40-size plane?

gumhead

Yes it is... Can you say maximum power

gumhead

Oct. 30th

I only did a little work on the plane this weekend. I mostly worked on the fin....


First was to glue the fillet blocks on the fuse and start carving...




After a little ruff sanding...