inspiron23

Hi, I am building my first spad, and I had some questions. It is the "spadet" trainer.
First question, When I cut out the rudder and glued it on my fuse, it has a "slight curve" going from top to bottom, like the piece itself is curved, is there anyway to straighten it out?
Second, I am currently building the wings, and I dont have 2ml coreplas, Can I use 4mm? will the extra weight matter, since i'm putting in a .47 engine?
thanks, Jonas

draftman1

it depends on the glue you used. removing the rudder and reglueing it sould be the best thing to do. Goop is usually removable. CA isnt. you can take your torch, heat it up a little and straighten it out. as far as the wing, you could use 4 mil, you may not be very happy with it but it is useable. you have have a higher wing loading with the 4 mill. when you score the leading edge, dont score it, if you have a router, make a 5/16" to 3/8" groove in the leading edge. you will get a much better fold. alot better than just scoring it. when you remove the material, it takes all of the tension out of the panel and it will fold right over and not pop open. with it beeing scored, the seam could pop. make the wing just like on the debonair if your using all 4 mil. also use two aileron servos. one on each aileron. you will have better action with two servoes

huck1199

You can put some bamboo skewers in your rudder to flatten it.

inspiron23

the problem is, im already finished with the body...could i heat it up and put in some sticks so its straight once its cooled off or wouldn't that work? I used diffrent kinds of glue throughout the kit, including CA, 6 min epoxy and urethane adhesive (windshield adhesive)
Do I need 2 servos? I have a 124oz futaba s3305 which i plan on using for the ailerons

jib

BINGO! on the skewers or small wooden dowels.

Yes, a .47 will power a Spadet with a 4mm wing. I fly a Deb with a 4mm wing (twin spars too) using a TT GP42 and it's fine. I use a slower prop; 11x5 to bring the thrust up.

If you don't have a router, use a big flat screwdriver to flatten the fold, after scoring with another tool. If you can completely crush the coro flute on the fold line, without cutting the coro (much) you will have a nice Leading edge. Fold the coro and put a load of books on top of the leading edge overnight. it will be easier to glue up the wing. Figure on clamping it closed when yoiu glue. Practice your clamping setup, before you apply the glue.

Jack

draftman1

good advice Jack!

inspiron23

Actually, I tried to crease it last night already and when i bent it over, it went like "snap" and the side i tried to crease just broke. I used a quarter to crease it, so it didn't damage it first, it was just to heavy to bend that far. Can I just tape it over with something, it should be ok, not? When I build my next one, i'll make sure I have some 2ml material.
Another problem I had was with the fuse, in the back where you cut out the point, so you can join the edges and make the tapered back. I couldn't figure out how you get the bottom flat, since there's not much material there to work with, I was even thinking of cutting through one layer of the plastic, so I can make a half decent crease.

To be honest with you guys, I kinda having doubts that it will fly, but I still have my fingers cross "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!" This is my first airplane I'm building "ever" We all gotta start somewhere.

jib

Using a qaurter will not probably allow you to exert enough force to properly crease the material If it actually split, this may be why. The crease goes on the inside and as long as the exterior has not cracked, there are no issues. Did it open up a split all the way through the coro?

Jack

draftman1

I havnt had good luck with just a crease. thats why I remove part of the coro. I just leave the outer skin intact. the groove has to be wide enough to allow bending about 250 degres. as far as the back goes, your right, it is hard to get it flat for the elevator. I make a couple of plastic angles to help hold it on. dont worry, it will fly. the next one will be better. and then better and then even better

inspiron23

@Jack
It did not crack all the way through, just one side of it, the other side is intact.

jib

If the intact side is the outside, you are perfectly fine.

Wait a second, are the flutes running cordwise (front to back) or spanwise (tip to tip). with an all 4mm wing, you need to run the flutes chordwise and sandwich in a spanwise aileron.

I like draftsman's routing trick, but I don't have a router. Scoring works fine, but it's a little harder to glue up the wing.

My first airplane build was my Debonair.

Jack

ps - Have you been to www.spadtothebone.com and www.spadworld.net? Huge amounts of info, with pictures and many folks more experienced than me to help too.

inspiron23

Ahhh, too soon old, too late smart.... [8D]
The flutes are running tip to tip or spanwise, AND, I was afraid of popping the other side of the flute, soo I kinda "accidently" "on purpose" glued it on so the broken side of the flutes are exposed....... (dont shoot me) The bend is reallly tight even now, most likely it would have popped if i would have tried it. soooooo i was thinking......silicone? tape? or something to cover up the flutes cause i have too

@Jack
Thanks for the websites, and your help! I appreciate it

jib

You can cover the exposed flutes with sign vinyl quite easily (visit a sign shop with your wing and beg for scraps) BUT I'm not sure how airworthy that wing wil be. I'm not saying it won't be strong enough to fly, I just don't know. It will be lacking strength in the chordwise (leading edge to trailing edge) direction. This one is definitely a question for the Spadworld crew.

If you have the coro, I'd remake the wing (sorry!!!) Download the plans and follow them exactly for your first wing. That is what I did. I have a nice, tough as nails, but heavy, wing that has survived many hard crashes. When I build another wing this winter, I have mods in mind to make it lighter, but now I know better what I can and can't do.

I'm not sure if I want to suggest this or not. If you have not yet build the fuselage, you may want to consider building a Debonair instead. While the Spadet is lighter and likely stronger, I'm on my 3rd fuselage, but I can build one in about 2-3 hours and it's simple for a first build. At least look at the Deb wing construction. It's straight forward to build, quite strong and very forgiving of build errors. I've ripped the first 5-6 inches of the hinge on the inside of both airlons and jammed robart points (hinges) in there and it still flies great.

Again, I'd suggest reading up on Spadworld, then moving forward.

Jack

inspiron23

Ok, I just checked what I wanna do with the wing, make a new one, or see if I cant cover the edge of the one I have now...and here's what I found out.

The flutes are running from front to back, NOT spanwise (sorrryyyy my mistake!).
I have sign Vinyl lying around (one of my buddies used to have a sign business) so I got lots of that.
My fuse is already complete so, I would prefer not to build a different plane and just scrap this one, I would rather just build another one, and fly both. And if bad comes to worse, I have lots more coreplast I can use if I NEED to make another wing.
I got the directions from the plane from www.spadtothebone.com and I followed to directions exactly to the print, except for the fact that I didn't have 2ml material, so I just went with 4ml.
Thanks, Jonas

jib

Excellent news.

Sorry I didn't realize you had the fuze built or I would not have suggested changing.

Enjoy. It sounds like you are on the right track.

Jack

inspiron23

Thanks for your help man appreciate it
Jonas

draftman1

dont forget to go to spadworld.net. an awesome spad forum. tons of info and a bunch of great spadders. we would love to have you there also
Being in south Dakota, you would be close to alot of other spadders and the famous Spadfest every year.

PatrickCurry

My Feedback: (20)

That's what I'm doing is getting the hang of clamping my wings down instead of weighting it down. I've got a piece of 1X4 that Ibeveledone edge at 45 degrees. Once I route the groove for my fold, I fold my wing over and lay it on my workbench (an old solid wood exterior door with a piece of 3/4" plywood on top of it) with the edge right at the edge of the table. I take the 1X4 and lay the bevel over the LE of the wing and screw it to the workbench. That holds the LE down. I put my spar in, fold the wing over, jam it up under that 1X4 nice and tight, glue the TE down, put a piece of 1X2 over the TE (I rounded off one edge of that because the first time I did it, it left a line down the coro) and clamp it down with 5 or 6 clamps along the length of that 1X2. That is working well for me. I find that more clamps with just enough pressure to hold it down is better because if you just go with 2 or 3 clamps you have to really ramp it down and you can crush the coro. Not that I've done that. The 1X4 is long enough to go half way down a wing. You do one half, then move the wing over and do the other half. If you had no dihedral you could just screw down a nice long 1X4 and do the wing all at one time I guess but I haven't done one of those yet.