Mike,

On the weekends I usually fly in the Schiller Woods (Cumberland and Irving Park), during the weekdays (when the days were longer) I was flying at Bussie Woods.

How about you?

Happy Thanksgiving,

-Mike

mxaexm, if you want to speed it up a bit (actually a lot) the parts in this kit are laser cut so they should fit together fantastic. (If they don't, use a #11 blade to modify it a little at a time until it does.) Use thin ca. You don't put the ca on the part and then attach. All you need to do is pin the part to be glued exactly where you want it, put a little pressure on the join with a finger and wick a very small amount of thin ca on the edge of the gluing joint. It will suck into the gluing joint and kick in a few seconds. You can do rib after rib after rib like this as fast as you can line up and pin in place! A pro could put the whole wing together an a few hours so I wouldn't be surprised if you could do it in a day or 2. Alphatic resin has its uses like with sheeting but it is painfully slow with standard construction and it is very easy to use too much.

You can use medium ca like alphatic resin but sometimes it is difficult to get it perfectly aligned as the ca can kick very fast. This is why I like thin ca. Aligned then glued...

Thin ca also hardens the wood at the join, turns balsa into a very hard balsa.

Also you can get little plastic tips that press on to the ca glue bottle tip making it a long and very thin tube. Makes it easy to get the ca into places and easy to only put a drop or 2. With rib joints I usually put 3-4 drops of thin ca on each glued place.

For places that need a bit more strength use a medium t-pin (or a great planes wood pecker if you have one) to poke a lot of little holes in the area to be glued. This make little fingers where the glue can soak into that REALLY grab. This works wonders when gluing plywood, like the wing joiner.

I use my wood pecker perfusely (disrgaurd the phun!) for strengthening joins everywhere during construction. Really makes a difference in the final strength of the aircraft.

This is where I fly. (In the pic below)

I also posted a video of my buddy (and instructor) who was teaching me pattern and imac last year flying at our field. Watching the video is great but you gotta see this kind of flying in person. I have personally watch him do rolling harriers 10 feet off the deck with his 35% extra 300. I was standing beside him behind the pilot station and I was so close that I could feel the air thrown off the wings onto my face. The most impressive thing I saw him do was a reverse wall from inverted at 100 mph!! The rudder scraped the runway!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYwe6IC5nrI[/youtube]


Unfortuanly the dude filming pulled out most of the rolling loops and rolling circles out including one where he does one roll for the entire loop and one for the circle. I'm guessing he did this to reduce the size of the video because the manuvers were great.

I would not have progressed as far as I have in the amount of time I have invested so far if weren't for you and Stacey. He's got some nard's! He scared the snot outta me when he flew my PA Extra 260. Thought it might bust up! It only had a couple trimming flights before that. He made the servos whine in its first (and only, soo far) rolling cicle! But that's all time on the sticks. Havin' him or his dad stand next to me teachin' is a definite privilege. I try and do the same stuff he does, before I am really ready for it. I do learn better when I force new maneuvers or strive to fly a certain way. The Midstar set-up similar to the way Tom had it, helped out tremendously too. It was my "go to" plane of choice. Always smiling flyin' it!

Edit...BTW its his plane in my avitar, lol!

Hello guys,

Finally glued all of the ribs...

I'm thinking of building it 100% stock but that's subject to change...

So far I'm having a great time building my first kit, however I'm hoping to speed up the whole process

Trust me, you don't. These things build so fast that when you are done, you'll wish you were still building. I have to force myself to slow down and enjoy my builds, because they are always done too soon. That's one of the reasons I quit using CA. That, and the burning sensation in my lungs.

Take your time and enjoy the process.

The reason I'm using Titebond is the lack of a bad smell and it gives me more time to enjoy the whole experience.

IMO the build with aliphatic glue and lack of odor makes the build actually faster, if you were building with CA you had to lean over the curing with CA parts and breathe it - not fun.
thats from my experience at the end of it using titebond builds faster.

I'm in the process of building a kit using Elmer's stainable AR. It seems to skin over more quickly reducing the time for a "handle-able" bond to be established than Titebond. Haven't glued my finger tips together yet either. I've used 30 min epoxy for the firewall but that's it. Of course, CA for hardening threads cut into wood - but that's it.

Pictures of my progress....still having fun.

I have no doubt that you will thoroughly enjoy your Mid Star, I feel they are very underrated. I built my Mid Star as a tail dragger 6yrs ago and it is still with me today. It is in need of a recovering but other than that it's as good as the day I built it.

Have fun with your Mid Star,

Travis

So true. The fumes are nasty. About a year a go I was blowing out some screw holes that I had hardened with thin ca. A tiny drop spattered onto the back of my throat. Very small about the size of a pin head. I have no idea how it got that far, but the quickly cured feeling was nasty and the tiny "tight spot" on my throat stayed for about 2 weeks. After that I now always hold my breath when I use any ca. Also a small fan blowing across your work area helps immensely in not having to breathe any fumes. I do this when I'm skinning. The fumes from pooled medium and thick ca are intense. I also wear safety glasses. I usually keep the glasses on so I don't forget to put them on. I also use aliphatic resin a lot as it dries fairly quick. I have a gallon of the stuff! Lately I have been using gumby glue (gorilla) a lot. I would like try the cheaper probond stuff but no stores in our area stock the cheaper stuff. but it is amazing how little gorilla glue is needed for a strong bond. When I build my King Kobra I will use the foaming probond to skin the foam cores as it bonds balsa sheeting to foam with a vengence. I will have to venture to a local larger city and get the probond.

mxaexm, your building looks very good! A strong wing partially comes from having no gaps at all on between the sheer webs, ribs and spars. It looks like you are achieving this.

OOOOPPPPSSSSSS!!

I was doing the leading edge sheeting and something didn't seem right, the sheeting would overlap the leading edge sq. balsa stick. Looks like I used 1/4" sq for the leading edge and 5/16" for the trailing edge. I know that there is not much of a difference but I decided to start from "Scratch." After work I'm planning on going to the hobby shop to pick up some balsa stick and sheets and will cut the ribs for the right wing and will build it one more time.....lesson learnt.

There were three ribs for each wing that are smaller than the other ribs, these smaller ribs should be at the wing center for sheeting.
see if that is the case and you will not be surprised with six smaller ribs for the other wing.
another issue to check is if all the rib opening for the LE are even and on the same line.
if you used the right type of ribs - 3 small at the center and still have them too big maybe to sand them off a little bit where they meet the LE and sand of the sheeting too.
another idea is to add an angled piece of balsa from the inside so when sanding you will not create a hole.

I'm sure that the issue is me using incorrect balsa sticks....oh well, not a big deal...will buy some new wood and will reproduce the ribs etc..

I was hoping to get help on the TE of the wing. Do I sand down all of the ribs down at the TE? THAT DOESNT SEEM RIGHT. AND THE SHEETING AT THE END HAS AN INCH OVERHANG. ? JUST NEED A FEW MORE PHOTOS OF THE BUILD.