Mike Chantler

Looks fast - curious, what do you use for the elevon wipers?

Just about to attempt some more bagging. My bugbears are getting the sandwich into to bag and keeping it all in alignment, so my questions concern what layers, pressure and arrangements do folk use? And whether to cut veneers oversize (risking curling by vac bag) or exact size (risking veneer missing parts of the core) Current thoughts are layers as below: The 6mm MDF is an attempt to stop the corners of the beds being squashed by the vacuum bag. Not sure how big an overhang to use. Also not sure what type of poly sheet to use to stop epoxy leaking thro to EPS beds. Stuff I have used in the past is pretty slippy and its easy for the layers of the sandwich to miss-align :( Am thinking of pre-aligning MDF, beds and poly sheet with double sided tape. If I cut the veneers with overhangs they can get crushed. Cut to size they can slip around and end up not covering the cores. Cores are 5mm extra at TE but exact at LE. Vacuum I use is normally about the max I can get out of a £15 pump - about 0.6 bar, I think. However, now have more powerful oilless pump that can get higher. Any thoughts, experiences, what not to dos, greatly appreciated. And if you know of good sources and types of veneer please let me know (have used poplar in past I think).

I think that they are very nice nimble aerobatic, light wind flyers, only downside is the built up wing does not survive a significant crash or midair, so I go for the arthobby 1.7m with v-tail when I know there will be light winds. Was up on Sunday with it, plus 1.7m prodji old mouldie, the prodji stayed on the ground as was worried about not enough lift for it, but the arthobby was great. If you are a good pilot you might want to go for the Slash, if your skills are a little "mixed" like myself, I'd go for the arthobby, as the foam veneered wing gives me a little more confidence, and the longer tail moment makes me think it tracks better 😀

Oh, and don't do a midair with a Gulp 😮🙂

We have a couple in the club, great light wind flyers, need a bit of ballast for anything more, i found the pin to keep the tailplane aligned needs a bit of reinforcement, enjoy your build 👍

I second that! - Fusion is extremely powerful but rather confusing and frustrating to start with. I think it took me about a 18 months off and on to really get to grips with. Given time, I can now generate quite complex fuselage shapes for a 3D printer, but I suspect that the next time I use it I will have forgotten how I exactly did these! The key I think is not to be too ambitious at the beginning. Small things made out of simple rectangular blocks and cylinders such as servo trays etc are a good place to start. The other is to keep really good notes of all the tutorials that you visit and the tips that you pick up along the way! I've found it very useful and like the others would not go back 🙂

Took it up the Sunday before last - and it was a bit like a bucking bronco, suspected CoG, had rough landing, broke front bolt and snapped rear fus. so could not experiment that day. Measured CoG when home, and some how or other it was 3mm further back than intended (duh 🤔 ) Thought I'd been pretty careful with setting it up as well 😮 Anyway, adjusted CG and up hill last Sunday and it seemed to fly very well, PW51 seems a lot more slippery, faster and tracks well. Well pleased 🙂 Somehow or other I managed to get the control horn holes too far forward (again, thought I'd been quite careful here!!) but I seem to have almost twice the amount of up as down!! Rolls are currently very non-axial, which I'm putting down to the tons of +ve differential, and I have a feeling that planks require a little -ve differential? Anyway - will get some programmable aileron and elevator differential added for next trip. Looking forward to getting that sorted and adding ballast 🙂

Ready to go and with nose weight it's 1120g That's about 250g heavier than the laminating film version. That said, I normally fly the lam version with half ballast to give reasonable loops and rolls, so given that it's a lot cleaner it will be interesting to see how it flies 🙂 Hopefully we'll have wind on Sunday 🙂

No space for dinner though 😁

Impressive looking kit of parts 🙂 Will follow with interest 🙂

Thank you for your interest 🙂 Programmed radio yesterday, so all I have to do is nose weight. Was going to do that today - but the Pentlands seem to be in the doldrums so will have to wait (hopefully) until next week. Interested to see how much heavier it will be than the version covered in laminating film.

Soldered up cables and started putting it together 🙂

Made up some linkages, had to replace the 105HV servos with 125WVs, as one of the 105s failed (eek) Drinking straws for servo runs worked well as the normally awkward twisted wiring just pushed through 🙂

Had a bit of a disaster with the Montana Gold. Paint looks as if it dried before hitting the wing - result is a finish rough as 90 grit, and I'm not joking 😬 Didn't hep that I didn't have my reading specs on so didn't realise until I'd finnish - was just way over-confident given success on a previous model. Decided just to go with it as it's just a 'quick' slope model, hay ho ... 🙄 And a bit of a storey behind the wing bolts: used test part print of fus to align tap at correct angle, it's balsa so threads need toughened up with CA a 2,3 times, impatience got the better of me and I managed to retap before the hot CA had completely cured ... Wrecked tapped hole and tap 🙄 An insert nut saved the day, remembered to coat bolt with wax and epoxied inset in and it worked fine, phew! (and one side seems to be enough)

Did 2 coats of light filler tinned to double cream with a bit of talc but no water Went on quickly, was a bit worried about all the bits in the mix - but sanded away quickly, sprayed with deep fill primer and sanded to what I thought was a nice finish 🙂 This went much faster than a PSS I did before, think it was applying the glass early in the process as this gives plenty of warning of potentially wrecking the surface by sanding through to the foam.