Last year you guys helped me get a H9 saratoga on floats... love it and thanks again.

I have a brother-in-law that just picked up a kadet LT-40 to float fly only with. It is powered with a saito 56 and flew wonderful on land, now time to change.

Which floats do you reccomend for this aircraft?

We were thinking the H9 36" float like I used on my saratoga but it doesn't fall in that 75 to 80% length ratio. Thoughts?

Thanks,
Steve

Stick with the ratio.

I've got 36" custom made floats on mine. Engine is an OS46AX. Flys beautifully

Plane Fun Floats and Seaplane Supply  both participate in this forum and both offer truly superior foam-core floats. 

They are MUCH lighter than the floats you mentioned, or than the built-up plywood floats offered as an afterthought by the major manufacturers.  <br type="_moz"/>

Here is my LT40 on floats. The side picture resolution is not very good but is included for the profile view. These foam floats were cut by a fellow modeler and are covered with .6/.7 oz fiberglass, held on with clear polyurethane paint. Then sprayed white. The floats have a backbone of 1/4x1/2" plywood running the length of the float. 5 1/4 holes were drilled vertically and 1/4" dowels were inserted and epoxied in.

Visit our web site at https://sites.google.com/site/ckffinc/

Thanks for the replies... Plane Fun Floats is hooking me up with what I need, 38" slim.... Sweet!


Cheers,
Steve

Great Choice. I used the regular Plane Fun floats on my LT-40 not the narrow ones and they were outstanding. Also used one float rudder attached to the nose wheel servo linkage.

The balance point should remain the same as on wheels. 
If you need to add weight-add to the floats so that if you swap back to wheels, it'll still be balanced.  <br type="_moz"/>

Thanks for the heads up!

Steve

That is a good idea... I'm using it!

Steve

I received the Plane Fun Floats, all I can say is wow!

These floats are a work of art. I'm sure others do a fine job too but I'm very impressed with these floats. Ralph provided excellent service too!

Ralph has my float business for ever!


Cheers,
Steve

Send pictures during the install for us to see.

The floats have three coats of water based polyurethane, lightly sanded after each coat. They are ready to cover and should be done next week. Water rudder just came in from Tower.

I made a front and rear gear for the plane as per Ralph's instructions (Plane fun Floats). Here are the finished photos of the gears (they are the same).

Steve

Will Monocoat or Ultracoat stick after floats have been painted with water based polyurethane?

I have been told either or both brands of covering will work just fine. I will be using Ultracote so I'll post some photos when the covering is done.

I used water based poly over oil base, I was told if oil based reached the foam it will melt it.



Steve

Heat-bonded coverings stick awesomely to sealed surfaces.  Just don' t try to remove them.  Doped surfaces have been considered effective for years. WBPU also receives covering well.   Turn down the heat on your iron so it only activates the adhesive and does not cause the covering to off-gas or you will get blisters. 

Thanks, That is what I wanted to know before I tried it.

Okay, slow going; just to many things going on... it's summer time!

The floats are covered, here is a photo of the finished covering, all white ultracote and the trim is in black ultracote. No problem with sticking to the sealed wood.

Remember, each coat of water based poly was lightly sanded, three coats were applied.

Now on to the rudder, then we mount these bad boys.

Cheers,
Steve

Nicely done!

Thx Jim, I had some help and they are far from perfect, the photo doesn't show small details. From 10 feet they look super

Steve

They look great from here!

I know I'm slow, not really just a lot going on.

I glued the front and rear blocks in, mounted the gears in place using stainless steel screws in the hard wood blocks.

Tomorrow I plan to finish this up, plan to fly it Saturday..... hope the plan comes through!

Steve

You're not in a competition!

Oh what fun!

Finished up my brother-in-law's float plane and used all the great ideas and suggestions from this thread. It flew absolutely perfect!!

He is so thrilled and I thought it flew wonderful too. My only thing would be I like more power, instead of a Saito 56 I would go up to something in the 70's or a two stroke 61.

Thanks for all the ideas and a big thank you to Ralph at Plane Fun Floats for a wonderful product!

BTW; I do not know if it's needed but I read it somewhere and knowing cars it made sense to me. I did toe in each float 1/8 inch, not sure if it did anything but this baby tracks straight as an arrow.


Cheers,
Steve

Nice looking plane and floats.

For power on my LT40 I have a Tower .75 two stroke.

I run my floats at 0 degrees toe in/toe out. I have never seen toe in or toe out help. All it does is induce more water drag. I know there are many opinions on this just as there is on toe in/toe out for land plane landing gear.

BTW, I always wondered why an automobile had toe in. I finally found one fellow that had an answer that made sense. He said that toe in was set to be 3 feet per mile and its purpose was to prevent the car from darting when the brakes were suddenly applied. The toe in was to compensate for wear in the tie rod ends and to keep the wheels from swinging out during braking.