Mike Chantler

Cutting out the ailerons, servo wells, cable runs

Adding LE, dihedral and tips (really should not of used white glue for XPS laminations - that was a bit of a disaster!)

Adding Kevlar hinges, carbon reinforcement and veneer skins:

Cutting the wings out of EPS: VID_20210309_222345.mp4

A while back I received a copy of Ron Collins' original F86 plan and as he was a member of our club and this model flies well in our conditions, it has been on my build list for a while I. I felt a bit guilty not joining in the mass build but I decided I would have to build this one first. It's also much less scale and simpler to build which suits my talents better! (this is only my second PSS and the first one was pretty ropey(!). The plan is basically very similar the the RCME one on Outerzone here except that it is drawn on two A1 sheets which allows the fuselage etc. to be shown complete rather than broken into two halves. At the time I was looking for materials Balsa Cabin had little balsa stock, so I decided to build it out of XPS pretty much one-for-one with the original balsa design (eek!). I have not used XPS much before so this was a steep learning curve especially where glue was concerned. For strength I've added carbon sheet in places made from cheap 6oz carbon weave (£10/m2). I usually take quite a few photos to remind me of the good (and bad) decisions - so will stick some of these up to show how I have got on so far. Wings are conventional veneer over EPS. Fuselage and tail will all be out of XPS - any advice on how to deal with this strange material much appreciated!

looking nice much neater than mine.

Results look really good My hands never seemed steady enough lol. Found the swing arm thingy/approach really good good to know about the grey foam board from Bluefoam - may try and get some of this - looks like extruded polystyrene (?) which I have found difficult to get.

Lovely build, fuselage and wing saddle look great. Simple carbon reinforcement really appealing. But how did you get the white foam carved so well? When I've tried it, the white EPS beads go everywhere and ruin the surface.

@MikeT - I like the slugs - very posh

I used a very similar ballast tube to MikeT. But mine can't take as much weight. It uses 20mm conduit which will take 520g - this is enough for mine, but I was focussing on a very light model. It will easily outfly most other slopers in light wind and in 10 mph will go up fast. However, as you'd expect it's slower than a mouldie and so will not roll as fast as a 2.5m Blade for instance. PS make sure you get rid of the release agent from the inside of the fus. otherwise the ballast will free itself on landing as mine did a while back.

I just varnished mine as well. I had to free up the hinges a bit to get the travel I wanted. Quite easy but you have to be very patient & careful otherwise you can put a score across the wing :O. I used 3 coats Eze-Kote. I'd experiment with the West/glass combo on scrap balsa first to see how easy it is to score through - I remember it being quite tough, but I think mine was 10 years old and had thickened up a bit. You should be able to get through 20g glass quite easily as long as you use minimum epoxy i.e. about the same weight as the glass or a little over. I have put 25g glass on with Eze-Kote on a PSS model - works well but not as tough as epoxy. I'm pretty confident (gulp, I think!) that I will get be able to score through the glass/veneer & down to the kevlar hinge - but Easy-Kote goes on really thin. I left the wings natural, but added sign-writers vinyl for orientation.

Bought tx16s last week as instant backup to my x9d+, as using the clone facility I don't have to rebind my receivers - brilliant feature. I've copied my models across and tested 2, so far and they seem to work fine. I like the feel and handling of the tx16s so think I will make it my main radio. Extra trims T5, T6, look great for things like butterfly compensation etc.

Mike Just spotted this thread, I love these models. I've had a hammer for about 3 years now and it's always the one I take up the slope as it flies in such a wide range of wind conditions - from 5-10 mph up to 35. Good to fit a ballast tube though as they are such light models. I use same servos as you in wings with M2 threaded rod with plastic clevis on both ends (I find that I can't seem to fit z-bend arrangement without getting a bit of slop in the linkage). Happy building. Mike C

Yes - I had same problem as MattyB with alu sheet.

I have used printed circuit board from maplins - bit expensive and only as big as 300mm but easy to get. I've tried aluminium insulating tape over cardboard - works ok for first few but easy to damage. Someone said that they use Pertinax / Phenolic Sheet 0.5mm on RCgroups I think - this looks easy to cut and long lasting so may try this next time. I think PCB used to be made out of paxolin - but has been banned as the dust is carcinogenic. Hmmm... just looked up dust from cutting Phenolic Sheet --- is also carcinogenic. Hmmm... may go back to aluminium. .

Fantastic

I kind of like the look of canopy plug, as is Quite menacing robot adaptation sort of thing going on. Not so aerodynamic at present though lol

Thanks Andy, sounds like a good compromise - must admit that when I saw the angle on scale drawings I thought that it would be really weird on a slope plane. Didn't realise original had a symmetrical section - makes sense now. Mike

Andy, great looking build - am jealous of the quality of construction and the way you manage to keep the balsa ding free. Also curious - looking at scale drawings and pictures it looks as if the real thing has a positive angle of attack of 3 degrees or so on the wing compared with the fuselage attitude. i.e. the fus looks nose down compared with the wing. Is this the case, and did you reproduce this, or go for a more conservative angle? Mike

Really neat wing root solution Whole build makes me very tempted to have a go at one. Mike

following

Thanks Rob, have just ordered Hammer off website. Mike

Paul, I do use nichrome wire and found it to work fine - I must be doing something from MattyB so I'll give details: I use 1.3m of 26 guage wire that I got from Maplins (found 28 guage too thin). I use a 5A adjustable power suply (a replacement laptop powersupply) on 20v (its selectable from 12 to 22v in 1v steps and this seems to provide me with enough control over the heat in the wire. I use a really cheap and chearful setup for the swing arm cutter - it uses monofillament fishing linean eye hooks (the type for you use for hanging pictures on walls). The monofillament line is virtually frictionless going through the eyehooks (i.e. no need for wheels). When you want to change the cutting ratio (tapper of the wing) you just unscrew the eye hook and screw back into new position. One issue - my wire looks thicker (.45 mmOD) than MattyB's stainless steel, so you might have to allow for a slightly wider cut. For the bow I use about 2m of 25mm OD white water waste pipe which I bend into a curve and tension when I attach the nichrome. Usual warnings about protective gear (especially eye protection) apply. Pics at https://pssmodels.wordpress.com/foam-wings/foam-cutter-setup/ I suspect the nice looking stuff that MattyB has cuts more consistently. Mike