Greetings Fellow Float Flyers
I have a .40 H9 Cub with the H9 float set. I have has 3 sets of struts fail in 9 flights. Two times the welds popped apart at the strut mount and once the wire snapped at the elbow at the strut on a mild bounce landing.

The welds that popped apart did so twice with the plane idling warming up the Saito .82

If 2 sets failed on the ground warming up the engine I think its safe to say its not pilot error. I am not the best float pilot but have 4 float planes and have hundreds of flights and this is the only reoccurring issue with floats that were not caused by dumb thumbs.

My Efite . 25 Cub has the same diameter wire struts and weighs half as much. No issues with this plane and I have bounced it much harder in waves on a landing, and its bullet proof.

I told Horizon last fall they need IMHO a thicker wire with better spot welds.

Each time they warrantied the struts last year they were on B/O, yet aparently I am the only guy having this problem!

I love the Cub on floats and its a excellent flyer, but I am looking for feedback if I am the only guy on the planet who got 3 bad sets in a row, which could be possible with my luck.

Horizon has good customer service but I am getting the "were are not having any issues with these strut"s line and am looking for any feedback on the wire struts failing.

Since I am convinced they are a marginal design at best, the next set I get will be taken to a welding shop first for some re-engineering McGiver style so I can actually fly this plane instead of constantly fixing it.

Cheers,
Sean

I didn't have problems with mine, for 2 years on the .40 Cub....only because I roughed em up, and wrapped em in wire and solder at every joint they looked weak to me from the beginning, so I didn't even try them in original condition.

Great idea. . The only issue is appearance. But at this point I am ready to forgo looks. Did you silver solder them? I have never done that type of soldering. I told H9 last fall they need to come out with a upgraded set for the 40 Cub that is the same style as the quarter scale Cub set that retrofits back to this plane/float set. Then they could come out with a .40 beaver like the Efite .25 beauty and have a scale looking strut.
I was thinking of buying a Sea Commander strut kit but it looks like a PITA project that costs too much.

I am leaning towards welding the next set and having them chromed or epoxy coated.

Thanks for the idea, I just want to fly this thing.

The float struts weren't chrome on the scale planes anyway....after wrapping and soldering, rough the entire rig up, prime and paint em. I grabbed the first roll of solder I could find, and have no idea what its composition was. The wire strengthens the joint, the solder just keeps it tacked in place. I've done the very same thing with JBweld instead of the solder. Works fine.

I will do the wire / solder thing if regular solder sticks or Jb Weld. I was thinking heat from welding such a small diameter wire might cause it to be more brittle than it is already.

Your help is appreciated Chad.

Now on to getting my warranty set from Horizon.

Sean

Either the welds are funky, or you're just hitting a resonance when you're warming up your motor. Does everything vibrate and get blurry before it breaks?

The solder of choice is sta-brite. Available from Tower or from finer hobby shops everywhere. The flux that comes with it works very well but is awesomely corrosive, so wash it off after the joint cools. Strip a length of copper wire and you'll have a pile of strands of copper with which to wrap the joint. It'll be as neat as you make it. It'll be good to use steel wool or a Dremel wire brush to remove the plating before wrapping and soldering. A torch works better on such large joints than a soldering iron or gun. Might be better to take off the wires and bolt them to a sacrificial board before applying heat.

Thanks Jim , I have only soldered elctrical stuff before not this diameter wire. I will use your advice and do the warranty set before using as I am tired of hauling this to the lake with a chase boat and not flying. I think the wire is brittle Chinese metal like I have had in some cheaper arfs where you bend a pushrod and it snaps like a pice of glass instead of bends like metal should.
The vibration is normal Saito 4 stroke and not blurry at all when they pop. Its at idle as opposed to say, setting the high speed needle. If you look close the spot welds cover only aprox half the area of the parts that touch. They look like they could use a second or 3rd spot weld easily where the 2 pieces join.

Thanks again for all the good ideas, I will redo the joints and wrap up the wire bends a bit too for support, as once the wire broke at the bend, not the spot weld.

Horizon wants pictures before they warranty this. I find they are pretty good about product support but its a bit anoying to have to prove I am not misleading them.

You could always use the old set as a pattern. Get some K&S wire at the LHS.
A Harry Higley wire bender is a marvelous thing.


[link=http://www.harryhigley.com/14LandingGearWireBender.htm]Link to Harry's site. [/link]


And this was a popup ad just under my reply:
[link=http://www.hangar-9.com/Register/?&utm_source=rcu&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=rc u_sw&utm_content=ProdReg]Register your H9 Product[/link]

Lead solder works, but you have to use acid to flux the steel and reinforce it with wire and a long contact surface. I generally silver the heavy wire before assembly. Silver solder is way stronger, but you need a hotter torch (oxy-acetylene or air-acetylene, maybe oxy-propane) and have to be careful not to overheat the wire and soften it permenantly. I have used silver solder on wheel and float struts successfully with just a simple joint - no wire wrap or other reinforcing.

I just picked up some silver solder but am not sure what flux to use or what temp to solder at. I could not find the sta brite mentioned. I will look up the process on the net although I only have a propane torch right now. I think I will stop in at my buddies who owns a welding school and get an opinion on how to strengthen it.
Horizon says this is the last time I am getting warranty on these. I think they are assuming I am hard bouncing them and its my fault. I am not a liar and these float struts are fine and bullet proof on my 4lb .25 Eflite Cub, but marginal on a 9lb Cub.
I spent all last week back and forth emailing pictures and just trying to get someone to ship me a set.

Thanks again for the support, I am so tired of dealing with this issue, now missing prime fall flying season again, like last year.

You want the stuff labelled "silver solder flux" (no surprise). I have two containers and they both have that in large font on the label. The place you got the solder should have flux as well. It is more like a paste than lead/tin solder flux. To keep the strength of the steel you want as low a temperature as you can. Keep a small flame on the fluxed joint. The steel will turn blue, which is OK. If it gets to red, that is too hot and the strength will be gone. As soon as the flux bubbles, get the solder in and when it wicks into the gap you are done. Practise on a test piece or two and you will be an ace in no time.

I am pretty well fixed for torches, but if I were not and only interested in model construction, I would go with a hardware store propane/oxygen setup. If you also have a need to weld or braze steel periodically, consider one of the small torch kits, typically a #00 and #1 tip, regulators, hoses, etc. You can buy the small refillable cylinders outright and avoid the ongoing lease payments for the big cylinders.

Where I bough the solder they had no silver specific flux. I am going to have my friend at the welding school do it as if I wreck the struts, I am screwed. I am going to post a picture of how crappy the spot welds are on these things. Finally after 3 weeks of nonsense with Horizon a set of struts are on the way supposedly. I found this service experience with them disappointing to say the least. They seem to be slipping with not enough people to deal with customers.

Here are images of the same part of the strut on 2 different sets. The picture quality is about as good as the struts joint! Notice how they are not parallel in one set and yet are in another. The quality of all the joints in both sets is quite varied as is the spot welding. I would not recommend these to anyone without the above mentioned mods. What do you expect for $130.00?