blabberon

Progress is happening on the huge access hatch that goes from the firewall up over and to the rear of the wing. It will definitely allow access to the fuel tank and servo, battery and receiver area. Interesting design.

Solstice

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Howdy Blabberon,

Very enjoyable read. You are an impressive builder. I have one of these kits on order and will start it soon. I appreciate all the pictures and especially the information on the mistakes you made. The build sounds a bit tricky as there seem to be a number of similar parts. If I'm careful and verify assumptions I'm hoping all goes well. I will post when I get started.

Question, what size letters did you use for your graphics? I really like the looks and may well do similar.

Thanks for all the information and the time you've taken to post.

Solstice

Flying Foot Doc

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Blabberon, Hope you enjoyed your vacation as much as I did ours to the Redwoods and Wine Country of Ca. Great seeing you back into the building. Keep up the great work, Doc

blabberon

Hi Doc. Funny that you came out to where I live and I went to the desert.

Ships passing in the night and all that

And welcome aboard Solstice. I think you are going to like this kit. It will keep you on your toes. It doesn't build like any I have ever done and the guys in my flying club, that have see it, are quite impressed with the design. I'm having fun and enjoying building this kit but I am not a master builder, the photos just make me look like one!! As for the Robin logo. I found a font that looked like the one on the Robin manual and enlarged it. I did it using Corel Draw on my computer so I don't know what size the letters actually are, I just drug them out to the size I wanted with the mouse! Then printed them!

Today I fitted the wing to the fuselage. It took a bit of trimming to get it to settle into the saddle nice and level, but not much. I contacted MosquitoBite about the way the wing mounts to the fuselage but they assured me it goes together the way they show in the instructions and plans. You will see what I mean when you get to that part.

I put the horizontal stabilizer, elevators, vertical stabilizer and rudder temporarily in place and discovered the right elevator trailing edge can contacts the push rod cable for the rudder. I didn't measure how many degrees of down it took to touch the rudder cable but is wasn't much. (As you can see in the photo.) I know this isn't a 3D plane but I was surprised. I'm going to contact MosquitoBite about this but I'm already sure this is what was intended. It just surprised me. I guess I won't be doing tight outside loops!

Flying Foot Doc

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Blabberon, It's a great day when a model kit actually starts looking like an airplane! I see what you mean about the elevator deflection. It'll be interesting to see what Mosquito Bite has to say. On your 1st & 3rd pictures the taper coming into the vertical stabilizer is different, is that just different stages of the build? Doc

blabberon

Hi Doc,

The taper is different. One photo is with the fin sub-structure, the other one has the "skin" set in place.

Today I measured the stabilizer/elevator angle with the elevator trailing edge touching the rudder push-rod and it turned out to be almost 25 degrees of down. I asked MosquitoBite about it and they told me 10 degrees of down is plenty. Perfect!

I committed to installing the horizontal stabilizer/elevators assembly today. I ironed on some of the UltraCoat, especially to and around the tip fairings because it is easier to cover them off the plane. The stabilizer red strips look wider than the elevator red strips but they will end up the same width when I apply the white UltraCoat. I needed a bit of overlap for the white to stick to.

It looks like good weather this weekend so I have my Great Planes Pete and Poke charged and ready to fly.

blabberon

Our club had a great weekend of flying and I had a lot of fun with my Pete-n-Poke. But now I'm back in the chips.

I laminated the second strip of 3/16th light balsa sheet to the upper fuselage corners and squared it to the fuselage side and top. Then made a set of templates from the fuselage plan, formers #7 ~ #11, to help carve the radius. The starboard top rear is about done.

blabberon

Shaping and sanding. Sanding and shaping!

Flying Foot Doc

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Looking prettier and prettier

blabberon

Thanks Doc,

Have you started building your Robin yet?

Today was a whole bunch more rounding fuselage corners but I finally have the bulk of the excess balsa removed. I guess that old adage holds:

Question. "How do you carve a statue?"
Answer. Just remove everything that isn't statue."

I did start building a dog house. At least that is what the lower cowl looks like inverted.

Photo #1 I started the sheeting by CA-ing on the laser cut balsa sides and bottom. (inverted on table)

Photo #2. After sanding a chamfer to the edges of the laser cut sheets, 1/16th balsa sheeting is CA-ed on to finish enclosing the lower cowl.

Photo #3. Several more layers of balsa sheeting is CA-ed to the 1/16th sheet to make the cowl thick enough to carved into a rounded shape to match the fuselage.

blabberon

My Robin is finally standing on three legs!!

Interesting angle of attack but pretty standard for the S.T.O.L. planes I have found on the web, such as the Fleischer Storch.

The first photo is of the mounting area for the landing gear. Access to that area is cut after the fuselage edges have been rounded. The removed piece is trimmed to clear the landing gear, then use to streamline the area.

Second photo shows the "angle of attack".

In the third photo you can see the air cooling exit from the cowl and the hole for the engine exhaust pipe.

Fourth photo, the Fleischer Storch.

blabberon

I'm getting ready to finish the upper cowl but first spent almost six hours installing the motor mount, the one inch long copper tubes through the firewall for the pressure and supply lines. I painted the inside of the upper and lower cowl with epoxy thinned with alcohol for fuel proofing. Drilled the holes and mounted the engine. Installed the throttle push-rod which had clearance problems with the engine mount and muffler. That took some time to straighten out. Then I was able to finally install the plywood sheet that goes behind the spinner. I added a 1/16th sheet of balsa behind the ply to adjust the gap between the spinner and fuselage. The fuel lines are in and I used small z-ties to tighten them to the nipples.

Now I can install the upper cowl sheeting and the necessary balsa sheeting to allow carving to match the fuselage.

Getting close covering the fuselage with Ultrakote and then gluing on the rudder. Woo Hoo!

blabberon

I'm getting the upper cowl closed up and sanded to shape.

Flying Foot Doc

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Six hours for the motor mount and fuel line pass thru's??

blabberon

Jeez, Doc. I don't know. Maybe I nodded off but six hours went somewhere! [&o]

Flying Foot Doc

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I'm sure it was 6 hours well spent. I'm just trying to get myself geared up for this project. As long as it takes me to do each step I may be at that step for a week..lol. Doc

blabberon

Okay, you guys ready for a confession?

I realized I screwed up. The specified Dubro engine mount is made out of some kind of fibrous plastic. Really strong. But it came with four sheet metal type, slot head screws, for mounting the engine. I thought that was rather wimpy so I bought some stainless cap screws with locking nuts. I positioned the engine and drilled the holes for the bolts.

Last night, in the middle of the night, my eyes popped open when I realized why the engine mount came with sheet metal type screws! It is so the engine can be removed, if necessary!! Duh!! The way I did it I will have to cut open the upper cowl to access the nuts if I need to remove the engine! Damn. It is too late to back up because I drilled the bolt holes all the way through the mount. I guess I could buy a replacement mount and try again but I think I will just live with it, for now, beings the cowl is all built, sanded and ready for covering.

MosquitoBite thought of everything when they designed the plane. Thinking "outside the box" only leads to trouble!!

As you can see in this photo I am thinking about windows. This plane needs windows!

Flying Foot Doc

My Feedback: (2)

Blabberon, if you can still get to the srews and nuts, the correction is still salvageable. Even if you can't the correction may not be too bad...maybe. If you can get the nuts and bolts out, the change too screws isn't a problem. You just need to pick a size screw that will clear the engine lugs and still bite the mount. That may not be possible without drilling out the lugs which I wouldn't recommend. If that doesn't work, can you drill access holes thru the upper cowl without weakening the structural components so you could put a socket wrench on the cap nuts? If none of those, leave it alone until desperation forces another move. Doc

blabberon

Hi Doc,

Thanks for the suggestions. I think I will just live with it for now and cut access if and when.

By the way, you can just call me Blab. My friends do!!

I'm finally getting into the Ultracoat! I'm pretty pleased with my window configuration. I based it on a S.T.O.L. plane called a Mountain Goat.

The lower half of the Robin is going to be red.

blabberon

I figure another week before all the little odds and ends are finished but this is how it looks.

Solstice

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Hi Blab,

I continue to be impressed with both the quality and speed of your building. The windows look perfect. I think I'm just going to copy some of your design; it's just too good if you don't mind me saying so. You know, Mosquitobite folks should take notice of what you've done for their advertising, because your plane looks fantastic.

Question, what color Ultracote did you use for the windows? Did you put it over the white or did you cut away the white where the window is located? If you put it over the white how did you keep the dreaded bubbles from happening? I have had good, but not great luck doing this. I seem to have a heck of a time trying for no bubbles. I use low heat, but maybe not low enough. There are tricks to applying this material that I haven't mastered in the last 16 years. There are not a lot of folks around here to learn from. I assume you are using a low heat and a sock on the iron? Any other secrets you want to share?

Sorry to hear about the motor mount bolts. You know when building I always have something silly like that vex me. I guess you should just be glad it was only bolts. Here's a remedy for this situation (if you can still access the bolts). Put socket head bolts in from the bottom of the beam mounts with JBWeld on the threads in the motor mount. Then the engine will be placed over the protruding bolts (like putting on a car tire). Then a 1/4 drive ratchet and deep socket are all you need. If the JBWeld doesn't hold well enough then tiny holes in the fuse top can be made to access the bolt heads with a Ball End driver. Does that make sense?

Good work. My kit is still not here. They had a problem with the cutting laser and are waiting on parts. I'm so excited.

Solstice

blabberon

Thanks Solstice, that is a great idea about installing the engine mounting bolts "backwards". Never thought about doing it that way. Thanks!

blabberon

Hi again Solstice,

I'm sorry for not answering your questions sooner, I got distracted by some other things. But now I'm back.

You asked, "What color Ultracoat did you use for the windows?

A. It doesn't really show in the photos but the color is.... Army drab!! That darkish green camo color? I was going to use black but happened to notice I had a partial roll of Monokote flat green and decided to give it a try. I actually like it although with the white and red and green combination it could be thought of as an "Oh Boy Oberto" ad!

Q. Did you put it over the white or did you cut away the white where the window is located?

A. I put the windows over the white, weight be damned!!

Q. If you put it over the white how did you keep the dreaded bubbles from happening?

A. I tried. I couldn't! I did tack each window into the place by using my small trim iron, a tack here a tack there and then tried to iron it on by carefully working from one side to the other, going slow and easy, low heat, trying not to wrinkle it or trap bubbles. I could avoid the wrinkles but I still trapped some bubbles. Those I poked with a small sharp needle and then shrunk with a heat gun till the air was expelled and then smoothed down with my glove.

Q. Any other secrets you want to share?

A. Yes, photographs make things look a lot better than they are!!

I'm not a master of Ultracoat but I must say, that stuff is very forgiving.

Here is a view of the underside of the cowl showing the air exhaust and engine exhaust.

blabberon

I installed the Spektrum DX7 receivers on velcro and connected the servos.

Bit by bit, I'm getting closer to take off.

Flying Foot Doc

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Blab, Wow this is looking exciting! I think I need to save this whole thread as a book.What a great job of building and documenting you have been doing, Doc