Andy G.

Thought it was about time I did a little update on this refurb.. Well, as predicted, progress has slowed somewhat, been mainly carrying on with mundane jobs on it, or the mirror image jobs that I had already detailed. So, both sets of flaps and ailerons are now cut free from the wing and blocked out, and the wing t.e blocked out. One pair is near finished, the other pair is waiting shaping and profiling. Been working on creating a route through the wing ribs for all the wiring, fairly easy on the balsa ribs, but the root ribs and the ribs either side of each nacelle are ply, and it's tricky to get a drill in close enough, but slowly getting there. Not an awful lot of room for the wiring, so he decision on whether to put the esc's in the nacelles or the fuselage has sort of been forced on me, they are going out in the nacelles, to lessen the wiring through the ribs! A sort of 'major' blow came when I went to order the second motor ( to match the one I already had left over from a previous abandoned project). Went onto the 4-Max website to order, only to find that although the part number is the same, the spec had changed! .. So,after a very useful phone chat with George at 4-Max, the only option was to order TWO NEW motors.. No pictures in this post as they are all pretty much the same as previous ones.. Waiting now mainly for my Xmas presents (servos) so I can push on with the wing refurb..

Anybody aware of the double left fuselage build?... Hakuna matata Chris BRU - BE / CTR Interfaces Control Double left fuselage build??? Ha! You're looking at the guy that once built THREE right hand wings! .. :P

A Cox Bee type motor outputs around 40 watts .

Hi Jason.... Glad to have helped out with plan and good to hear you are almost ready to go on the build! As for covering , I did mine from film I had in stock, it's done in a mixture of Solarfilm, Oracover and HobbyKing film. I find the HobbyKing covering very good, especially for the price.

Looking Very Dazzling! Tempted to put one of these on my build list!..

Hooray!.. New window is installed in the workshop, and it's warmer in there now! The tidying up, well... I started with good intentions, it was going to be so much tidier, no, honestly it was.. I promised! ... But.. well, you know how these things go! I did run around with a dustpan and brush, and I did chuck a couple of models and some other junk out, but then the rot set in, so it was back to normal! Then a few other life issues held up building ( and flying) activities Anyway, the BN2 refurb has finally restarted again. Working from a 3 view I figured out where I would cut the door into the fuselage for battery access, It's not 100% scale position or size, but it looks sort of right. The opening was marked out then the door area cut free. The opening was framed out inside for strength and using the access now available a strengthener was fitted on the adjacent internal fuselage side. The rear of the door was fitted with a cross grain doubler and a diagonal brace to keep it straight and true. I realised at this point that maybe my enthusiasm had preceded praticality and that I should have considered how I'm going to hinge the door before I added the frame/doublers etc. Still, it's not an insurmountable issue, just annoying. The next job was to take on gaining internal wing access for wiring to the motors and servos, again, as I have no plan, I pricked through the wing sheeting with a pin to find the rear spar and then cut a slot through the sheeting running forward from the spars. This went surprisingly easily. In order to maintain strength and also to provide at least one bearing surface for the replacement sheet I added a vertical grain web between the top and bottom rear spars. The next phase was online, searching out suitable servos for the wing and ordering up servo extension leads and silicon covered wire for the power wiring out to the nacelles. The servos (4 Hitec .HS-85BB ) have been added to my Christmas list, so won't be fitting those for just a while! The servo extension leads were ordered up but, when your sat at the PC and you're used to thinking in imperial units, 250mm ( a quarter of a metre) seems quite long! Sadly of course, I should have measured the actual length required out in the workshop first. The leads, which arrived from Airtek the next day were sadly far too short! Ah well, they'll come in useful on another project. A few pictures next, Aileron has now been cut free as well as the flap. Wiring access slot cut through bottom sheeting. Rear of wing blocked in for flap mounting. Door opening cut out. Trial fit of the wing! No, Only JOKING! That's actually the wing from my Sharkface which is just slightly smaller than the BN2's tailplane! This is what happens when Idle hands start tidying up!.. Once again the build has pretty much caught up with the blog so postings on here will probably slow again for a little while.. Hope it's still interesting though. Edited By Andy G. on 17/11/2017 10:32:05

I've built several foamboard models, although not flite test ones, but have learnt a lot from their videos. One of the main points is that you really need a BIG hot glue gun, particularly for the bigger joints otherwise it's set at one end before you finish applying the glue. How to avoid the dreaded glue strings? Well that's a nack I haven't acquired yet! One thing I have learnt is........ Don't smooth the glue joints down with your finger, it HURTS!!!!

Elliot.. There's an app which you dowload to your phone/tablet what ever, called Mobuius action cam , or mobius tools.. It allows you to set all sorts of parameters on your Mobius camera, The most useful one for you in this instance is where , when you put the mobius into stills mode, it allows you to set the time gap between stills, I fly with mine set for one shot every 15 seconds... The app has lots of other really useful parameters too, especially one that lets you invert the video image at source, so you can mount the camera upside down ( for ease of access to the control buttons) under your plane and not have to flip the video in an editing programme afterwards.. The mobius is self powered, so no need to worry about what airborne power you have, you just need to purchase a micro usb lead to plug the mobius lead into your tablet/phone.. Some stills from my mobius here..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie2lL-hmjXk

Well, workshop is currently piled up in a big heap, awaiting arrival of the window guys on Thursday, can barely get in there now! So, very little activity until at least the weekend, can't even get to the bench to charge any batteries.. Still, I guess, it will give me an opportunity ( excuse!) to have a tidy up and even chuck a couple of old models out.. But... at least my fellow forumites have convinced me not to worry about a steerable nose wheel, I was pretty sure I didn't want to do it, and you have convinced me!.. Thanks. Hopefully get back to normal by the weekend.. ..

Use the Mobius app to take stills at so many second intervals, much better pic quality!

Progress has slowed a little bit over the past week or so, as the blog has been slowly catching up with the build, plus real life has been a little invasive as well, and set to get worse. I'm having a new window fitted in the workshop this week, but of course masses of my modelling stuff plus several models are in the way, so I'm currently trying to build up the enthusiasm to go and sort the workshop out! That said, there has been some progress, the flap that was cut free, has been stiffened and it's hinge edge blocked out and sanded off at an angle, as has it's mating surface on the wing. Out of the workshop I've been googling images and 3 views of the fuselage in preparation for marking out windows and doors. I intend to make one of the forward doors openable to gain access for the lipo battery rather than having to take the wing off or have a hatch underneath somewhere which on this size of model really isn't practical. Having flown most of my RC time using either tail draggers or hand launched models I need to ask advice here. Obviously the BN2 is trike arrangement, and this one having been originally built for control line flying has a fixed front wheel. The front leg is solidly built deep into the nose block and it would take considerable 'surgery' to gain access to it to change it to a steerable unit and link it to a servo. What's the consensus here?.. Do you think it will ground handle ok with a fixed wheel, I don't really want to have to give the fuselage a major nose job!. Taxying out and back into the pits isn't too much of an issue where I fly, the model can be carried to a suitable take off point and recovered by hand again after landing if need be, so it's mainly an issue with keeping straight during take offs, and landing... Thanks..

I'm currently posting from my tablet and don't use Facebook on there so cut and paste a link (plus I have no idea how to from it!) but there is another interesting group on there called ............ Stick and Tissue. As the name implies it's all lightweight built up balsa models, mainly scale and almost exclusively free flight but the standard of building and finishing is truly magnificent. Take a little peek , you WILL be impressed.

BBC..... Wight Maiden is looking really good!

OH!.. Seems you're ganging up on me now! LOL.. I'm still a long long way off of deciding on my scheme.. We shall see.. Who knows, I may even find a completely different one yet!. Thought I'd show a few more wing pics today as the fuselage has had it's spell in the lime light.. So.. This is the wing tip that was ''nibbled'' on by wasps. Rather than try and fill the chewed area I cut an easy to fix square area from the tip and then rebuilt it with sheet and a couple of internal formers. On the original Control Line format, this was the 'Outboard' tip, so you can see the adjustable tip weight box just past the area to be repaired, the lid has been removed, primarily to check there was no tip weight in there. The new bits going in, I stuck a balsa sheet tongue out from the existing wing structure to support the new balsa sheet repair. Once dry the area ws trimmed and sanded back to match the existing shape. I added ply stiffener/support into each nacelle fuel bay where the tanks had come from. Although the tanks were never intended to be 'structural' I felt they certainly helped with rigidity as they completely filled the bay. I also added a small square section of hard balsa along the edge of the firewall/wingsheet interface as well. You can just see the old throttle linkage wire exiting through the wing l.e into the engine bay, First wing flap cut free from the wing main structure, giving me another insight into the wing construction. Another view of the freed flap, awaiting being stiffened and filled. The Islander's flaps for this model deploy around the rear of the nacelle which creates a little extra work and ingenuity.. I marked out the area to be cut, determined to cut it free in one piece to decrease the possibility of it becoming twisted. Luckily I followed the old adage of .. Measure twice... cut once.. or in this case check twice.. I was just about to cut the wrong half of the inner flap line, which would have forced me to rebuild the flap when I realised! A few choice words and a few swigs of coffee and the job was completed safely!. ............. More to follow..

Here's mine, with a PAW in it.. Still unflown at the moment..