Levanter
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Posts posted by Levanter
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Martin
I think what Erfolg said was brown packing tape otherwise know as parcel tape. When I was laminating professionally we used it as a parting surface for non-critical surfaces but still important to wax and use release agent as belt and braces.
For the undercarriage it should be perfectly acceptable presuming the moulding will be dressed and painted. The only thing to avoid is getting the tape creased as this makes a male feature in the mould and a female feature in the moulding that will need filling.
Levanter -
Posted by conrad taggart on 28/11/2018 12:41:31:Posted by Steve J on 27/11/2018 13:23:37:
Posted by Andy Symons - BMFA on 27/11/2018 12:31:38:
When you consider the CAA regularly mention what a "very good thing" it is to have a publication pretty much guaranteed to land on every members doormat 6 times a year
If the CAA think that the BMFA News is a "very good thing", how about asking them for some cash to help pay for it?
Steve
Exactly !
Weird as Austin, Texas!!
Edited By Levanter on 28/11/2018 14:15:02
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Posted by Steve J on 27/11/2018 19:06:43:Posted by Guvnor on 27/11/2018 15:40:38:
having failed to look for any urgent safety or technical notices
I wouldn't expect somebody wishing to promulgate "urgent safety or technical notices" to rely solely on a magazine that is published six times a year.
Steve
Nor would I Steve. If it was really that urgent that it had to go out immediately I am sure there would be many other means of getting the message out. Otherwise for technical notices, once every two months sounds more than adequate even if there were that many notices.
Levanter -
Bizarre suggestion Steve.
I would think that if you asked the CAA if magazine RCM&E was a good thing they would say yes too. Can't imagine Mr Ashby would get anything from the CAA except some very funny looks.
Levanter -
Hi Andrew
I think a photo could help here but here's some thoughts anyway.
The strength of the wing joint will be in the dihedral braces (if there are any) or the bandage bonded to the wing skins. Using epoxy to fill the gap would probably be an overkill and would only be as strong as the bits it is stick to. It would also add unnecessary weight and could be difficult to sand without damaging the adjacent material if it was not dead smooth.
I have had a similar problem before and now tend to put the ribs at the wing root in at the last minute which can help.
In this case it sound like the mating ribs are not straight so I would glue a wedge shaped piece of balsa say 3mm thick at the widest point and tapering to nothing 2 inches in on each rib. You then have a little bit of meat so and off to get a good mating fit. Quick and easy with no significant weight gain. It has worked for me.
Levanter
Bob beat me to it with the balsa. You have a dihedral brace so no real strength required at the gap. Just enough to keep alignment which is what you would have anyway if the ribs made contact. A large number of my builds don't use epoxy anywhere. Mainly aliphatic with some occasional cyano.Edited By Levanter on 27/11/2018 14:10:50
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Hi Geoff
They are the large and medium rigs for an International One Metre. I also have a couple of obeche masts for another yacht that is awaiting repair after being attacked by a Rottweiler. Yes - Seriously!
Funnily enough the hull was in the bath yesterday checking for leaks (none found in the hull) as I have an urge to get it back on the water this winter. We sail in bays and harbours so it gets a bit rough sometimes and water always seems to find its way in somehow but now I know it is through the deck.
Levanter -
Stephen
Two layers of 4mm with the joints staggered. The corks tiles are self finished so paint, glue, water and anything else I can think of throwing at them wipes off easily. The cork is also kind on the blades and razor saw when I can't be bothered to go and get the cutting mats for a quickie.
I also have a 1.2m IKea plain white kitchen table that is cork topped. It was not dead flat but a couple of steels screwed on the underside fixed that.
Levanter -
Paul
It looks very much like the Scottish Aviation Bulldog and yes, a good looking aircraft.
Your tally grows!!
Levanter -
Double layer of cork tiles on 19mm multiply and five boards of varying sizes.
My boards get plenty of abuse and plasterboard would not stand up to it.
This is my biggest board stored and clipped vertical on the back of a cupboard door to stop warping. This side is the SLEC fuselage jig and the other is cork covered.
Six years old and going strong.
Levanter -
My favourite go-to place when I am in the UK. Great shop and very helpful. Hoping to get there again very soon.
Levanter -
Hello Nigel
I know the type of rubber you are talking about and the ones in the photo are different. There are a number of different types.
The type in the picture is one at each end under the lug of the servo.
Alan
Could you help us by saying why you have identified the picture showing counterfeit servos.
Levanter -
I am behind on the Mass Build (as usual) and for me it is too close to the Ballerina that I did not build in the end but might do enlarged one day to take a Saito twin I have lounging in its box.
This one is not for me so I have a plan available. If anyone would like to PM me am would be pleased to send the plan and a copy of the instructions.
Levanter
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Cuban8
Another good question. Perhaps if members wish to insure their models it should be an optional extra to the third party cover that is so crucially important and clearly a lower risk (although the individual claim amount could be very high).
The additional premium would pay for the additional risk without affecting those who don't want it. The premium could be based on an agreed valuation on individual models if they are of high value or a blanket value (a bit like household contents cover) as an alternative.
An extra administrative costs should of course be covered in the additional premiums.
This would help eradicate inflated or fraudulent claims as the cover would have automatic limits.
Slight topic drift I know.
Levanter -
What rule is there that says it has to be a % increase anyway. Why the wailing and gnashing of teeth? The increase is £4 for heaven's sake.
The question could also be asked what might be expected in the coming year and budgeted for in a sensible manner.
Do we pay with percentages or do we pay in actual pounds I ask myself?
Martin
It is a good question but the first to know if there was a trend in inflated or fraudulent claims would be the insurance underwriters. As a marine surveyor I am frequently working for insurance companies verifying claims and serious anomalies can usually be found quite easily. People mostly back down when they suspect they have been rumbled. Small claims are generally just paid out because to investigate would actually increase the costs but there is a cross-over where the benefits of scrutiny start to apply. Interesting to see if Andy S is able to provide some information and how claims are managed.
LevanterEdited By Levanter on 19/11/2018 22:50:47
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Hello Martin
I have a part built Oodalally and it has a Saito FA-40a
I am expecting the all up weight to be reasonably light so given Peter's "fly on the wing" philosophy I an anticipating this model to perform very well indeed.
My preference is always for inverted where possible (and it usually is).
Here it is for test fitting on the mount prior to marking off the motor mounting holes. I do this by heating up a length of brass rod that matches the hole diameter. The end of the rod is pointed and makes a perfect indent to start the drill accurately.
Here it is installed in a "dry fit" to check clearances etc and to arrange the throttle linkage and tank plumbing.
The other check was to see that the rocker covers were not vulnerable in a "nose over". With the fairly pointy spinner and the Dural undercarriage from the spares box, there is adequate clearance. Time will tell but I am very happy with the result and hope there is enough engine hanging in the breeze to keep it cooled.
Levanter
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There is no doubt about the No1 hobby in our flat.
These are all aircraft that I have built. There are four more in the workshop (spare bedroom) and four other in the bedroom.
Suspended like this from hangers made from piano wire.
To prevent any damage or rust staining, the section supporting the wing is covered in heat-shrink and here (this is a Veron Robot) the wings are banded on, the hanger goes under the dowels to take the weight off the bands. With planes that have bolted wings the hanger goes directly onto the wing and I make sure during built that the wing is at least sheeted a bit wider than the fuselage to give the hanger something to bear on.
The bands are not the rubber bands used when flying. They are elastic bands bought from a haberdasher that are used in waistbands as these are not affected by UV light and do not pop-off unexpectedly. It happened once!
I have more ceiling space which is just as well.
Levanter
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Dean
Welcome to the forum. I am a Peter Miller fan!
Take your plan to a decent copy shop. They will be able to scan it to pdf. I do this a lot with drawings of full size ships and yacht to digitize and archive.
I am strange however. I find cutting out wing ribs and then putting holes in them exceedingly good therapy.
Sandwich method for the wing ribs of one of Peter's designs Yuppy Love. It is a bipe so lots of them!
And then the holes made with sections from an old transmitter aerial.
Yeh, I know!
Levanter -
Poignant reminder of unimaginable suffering. Not only for those who died but also for all the families left behind to grieve.
And then it was done all over again only 21 years later. It is hard to understand how the doctrine of so few individuals can destroy the lives of millions.
RIP
Levanter -
That type of clunk is made from chromed brass. The chrome is hard and if it has come off, it is conceivable that it could cause damage.
Levanter -
I am trying to make an effort to incorporate something that I have not done before on every new build. This time around I decided to try riblets. I thought it would enhance the look following my other modifications as well as perhaps make the wing a bit more efficient. I didn't bother to plot out the riblets as the difference between each one is virtually nothing. The tiny difference in the tapered wingtip area was easily sanded to the correct profile using the adjacent ribs as a guide.
The wing tips ended looking like this. The sheer webs get smaller and smaller out towards the tip as they have less and less work to do. The outboard sheer web is just long enough to provide a landing for the last riblet.
The block on the right hand side of the photo is a block to make a hard point for the strut attachment.
Here is a view of the inboard section of the port wing before joining. I almost always use the false leading edge method that I first saw on a Peter Miller design.
Always fun to have a pre-covering jigsaw. This one had a definite purpose though to get a rough idea of the balance point. Most bits and pieces are just taped in place but the motor (OS LA 10) is bolted in place, the pilot is in her position and the undercarriage fixed. Making an allowance for the covering which always seems to add tail-weight I worked out that the rudder servo could go at the rear. The elevator could go in the cabin where there is plenty of room and a normal sized Rx battery would give me the fine adjustment somewhere around the middle of the cabin.
All back into pieces for the finishing which seems to take even longer than getting to this point.
Levanter -
Hi Chris
Hi Chris
A quick excuse dressed up as an explanation
Because I moved the ailerons outboard I did not needs to have such a large chord. In fact the size I wanted happened to coincide exactly with some short lengths of trailing edge stock I had lying around. Amazing that
I did think about built up ailerons but due to the wonderful coincidence and an equal dose of laziness, the stock material won through.
I do now have some other problems with the wings that I will come onto shortly
Levanter -
As I mentioned on my original post I was not that keen on the wing. The main spar is very much to the rear over most of the wing so it is in the right place only at the wingtips. The spar is not as deep as it could be in this position. This also means that the covering has big dips between the ribs which I think looks a bit strange. The other thing I felt was that there was quite a lot of dihedral but the ailerons were mounted inboard where they are less effective. I thought the two features would be in slight conflict. So again with apologies to Marco I re-designed the wing.
The pink dotted outline is the original plan view with a double taper. I decided to make the leading edge straight and have all the taper on the trailing edge. This meant that the front spar could be continuous and therefore a bit stronger. The green lines show the new shape with the spar moved forward and the ailerons moved outboard to the tips. At this point I decided to do away with the polyhedral and just have a small amount of simple dihedral to prevent the "droopy" look. This also meant that I could increase the span of the aileron by one bay to make it look more in proportion.
I kept the wing area very close to the original by using the original wing tip rib but just moved forward. Actually there is a very small reduction of area due to the aileron extending one bay inboard but I reckoned the projected area of the wing would slightly bigger due to the reduced dihedral and the two things would cancel out to give the same wing loading as designed. The other consideration of having the straight leading edge was to move the centre of lift slightly forward and this would help with the nose heavy concerns.
Changing the wing planform meant three new ribs required each side. I don't have any design software so it was back to basic drawing principles. The wing tip rib and the rib at the inboard end of the aileron are unchanged. These were cut out and used as templates to draw the smallest and the largest rib. The datums are the straight leading edge on the left and the straight baseline of the aerofoil. On the right hand side of the drawing the rear ends of the intermediate ribs were marked equidistant on the baseline. The space between the small and large ribs was then divided into three spaces at a number of points along the chord. This is easy to do by eye and the small dots can just be seen in the photo. The intermediate ribs were then drawn in using the larger rib like a French curve. On a detail this small the academic errors are too small to be noticed and the approximation works perfectly once the ribs are spaced out on the wing.
There was not much change on the inboard section of the wing. The simple dihedral is about 10mm each side and as the wing fastening now goes through the main spar there was no need for the ply ribs on the centerline. This has save me a few grams.
My lower sheeting is continuous and is not fitted between the ribs. I find it easier to build by reducing the depth of the rib to account for the sheeting thickness. It is also stronger. The sheet can also be made to extend slightly outside of the fuselage so it still acts as a seating if the wing gets knocked a bit out of alignment.
The aileron servo is now of course much further outboard.
On this model the wing is mounted quite over the built up cabin. The centre of gravity is therefore quite low in relation to the lift with a pendulum effect. I though it should have ample stability without any dihedral because of this but as a join was necessary on the centerline anyway it has a bit of dihedral for aesthetics.
One further note on the wing, the ailerons were from stock material which saved me a bit of time over built up ones.
Levanter -
I feel another build coming on then. This time it will have to take its place behind finishing Grumpy Tigercub and Oodalally.
Question for Peter:
I hadn't really though about it but why would a low winger be considered better at aerobatics then a high winger?
Levanter -
Hi Eric
In full size the navigation lights don't flash and often are only visible at quite close range. Strobes however draw attention to the presence of the aircraft and are easily picked up by the human eye. Assuming of course not flying through cloud
Levanter
Build query
in Building from Traditional Kits and Plans
Posted
FB3
I think I know what you mean and you are restricted in the width of the sheet of balsa perhaps?
Is it possible to use vertical grain as much as possible, then the piece you have to join would probably not matter which way it was orientated.
Levanter