Howdy folks,

I'm building up my OMP Yak profile kit and noticed the lazercut hatch was missing when I went to find it in the box. I'm missing the wing alignment dowls and short on the triangle stock as well. Ihave lots of stock to make new ones but its just frustrating at times.

The directions say the hatch cover is made of 1/16th balsa wood. Seems a bit flimsy to me. What should Imake the hatch from? 1/16 plywood perhaps?

Any thoughts would be very helpful as I getting ready to start covering this wonderful model.

Tony

Tony,

When did you buy this kit and can you tell me where? If you are missing parts I can certainly help. the hatch is not balsa but laser cut 1/16" ply. It should be on the same sheet as the ply fuse doublers.

mike

Hello Mike,

Thank you for the reply. I've had the kit about a little over one month now and purchased it from the OMP website. I lookedat the laser cut plywood sheets that I popped the fuse doublers out of. One of them had the rib doublers laser cut in it but the other just had a huge blank section of plywood. I guess perhaps that is where the hatch should have been laser cut? If so I will just go ahead and make one from what is left of this sheet.

I was a bit disappointed in the wood quality that I had to replace with better stock. Some of the 1/4 square and triangle stock was so soft you could just crush it with your fingers and they snapped like twigs with little pressure. I know to replace poor wood like this after 25 years of building but someone new might use this wood and have a model that doesnt last or breaks during a firm landing. I lived this once on my very first model trainer. The 1/16 balsa sheets seemed very dry and brittle as well.

I have some 1/4 inch stock handy to make new wing alignment dowls for the ones that were missing, so most everything is taken care of at this point.

I did note that there is a difference between the engine mount openings in the plywood doublers but there is no mention in the directionsas to which side is left and right. Luckily Inoticed the difference before Ibonded the sides. I'd like to see the directions "fill in the blanks" a bit better. Some things are just left to the imagination.

Otherwise, the kit is building up well. Just looking for my power and covering sceme options.

Any input at this point would be greatly appreciated,

Tony

Tony,

We get our wood from Balsa USA and generally everyone is very pleased. Like all suppliers there might be some select wood that is not up to par. The Yak is intended to build light so the wood should be as such. Since the engines mount on the right side of profiles the larger engine cutout goes on the right side.

I'm extremely impressed with the light weight build and the speed of framing up the wings and fuselage. This is my first profile build so coming from the standard Great Planes, Topflight, Goldberg built like a tank phylosophy will take some getting used to.

Was there a batch of fuselage doublers that didnt get the hatch laser cut or did my kit just slip through the cracks? Otherwise the laser cutting was first rate and the parts just fell out of their sheets.

Thanks for the help and I look forward to flying this model soon.

T

It is certainly possible but you are the first guy to say the hatch was not there. This is puzzling as the laser cutting file is like a CAD file that is sent to the laser cutter and should never change. Only thing I can think of is something could have interrupted the process and stopped the cut??????? Still a very unusual situation. Should be a simple rectangle from the 1/16" ply with a hole cut in the middle to lighten it up.