Mike Bell

They were all builders models in those days Dean, but I agree about the tail. What a complicated way of doing it for no advantage I can see. According to the weather forecast it's going to be another building weekend, hopefully I can make some more progress.

Well it's been a while since my last post, in the meantime I got a wood pack for the TN Gnat for Christmas so I got distracted and knocked one of those up. Since then I've been slowed down by sciatica and other life stuff but eventually I got going again and built the other wing - much easier second time round, the wrap around leading edge was a doddle this time. I have just got the servos for the wings, one in each side of course these days so made simple mounts as below. Need to finish off the centre section sheeting then I'll be ready to join the wings. Next job is to sort the upper turtle deck on the fuz. In common with practice at the time of the design the plan calls for carving the whole thing from 1 inch thick balsa sheet. I did think about changing this but what the heck I'm sticking with it. I must say it feels wrong to buy an expensive sheet of balsa then leave most of it on the floor as shavings but I'm getting over it.

Covering such curvy fuselages with film is a bit of a pain but I don't think I could have got anything like a comparable finish with tissue and paint without adding a load of weight. I have no idea how much weight the Oracover I used added, but the overall weight came out on target. I haven't bothered with testing static thrust, I'm not sure it's a particularly reliable indicator. I'm just going to chuck it and see when the weather gets better.

Does anyone out there have the new Timber X 1.2m? I have had one for a while and it goes pretty well, but I can't help thinking that it lacks a bit of punch given the claimed 3D credentials. I often use it with floats and the extra drag really dumbs the performance down. I have noticed that the prop is rather bendy and I wonder if replacing it with a stiff APCE equivalent would increase the efficiency. Other than that does anyone have any other suggestions for hop ups? I'm not looking for outrageous performance, just a bit more zazz without losing duration. Mike

Still waiting to maiden mine, combination of crap weather and suffering from sciatica. Both must get better eventually

Hi Ashley, as Martin suggests I fitted a disk of lite ply in the front opening of the cowl then cut out a segment from it directly in front of the cylinder head. I covered the front of the ply disk with a photo of a radial engine which actually looked OK from a distance. The tank was a Slec item, either the blue or red. It was a neat fit between the bearers and gives plenty of run time.

20 odd years ago I built a Puppeteer and installed a Laser 70 (I think) and it is currently fitted with a Laser 62. To make the engines fit without extending the nose I cut into the firewall, to allow the back of the engine to sit partially behind it. The engine is mounted on hardwood bearers. One other piece of advice I would give is to blank off the front of the cowl so that the air only goes over the engine and not around it. I cooked the Laser 70 as a result of not doing this. Mike

I covered it complete. Must admit that was one of the hardest parts of the build. One useful build tip I got from the main TN thread was to insert the wings into the fuz separately before gluing together - highly recommended.

Hi Martin I've just finished my version, you shouldn't find too many problems but will be interested to see how you tackle some of the details.. I was a bit of a lazy git and used TN's wood pack which apart from the ply bits was really nice soft balsa. I think using soft throughout is key to achieving the weight, mine is 21.5oz ready to fly. Hasn't flown yet but I'm looking forward giving it a go.

Wayne, check out funfly.bmfa.org . There is an event at Buckminster in April. It would be great to see you there.

I fly own designs but you see Limbos and a lot of Fusions (Evolution Models) Stay clear of Jives, they are ok sports models but too heavy for serious fun fly.

Hi Wayne, here's my setup that I've used at the Nats the last few years Battery 3S 2200 35C Motor Turnigy D3548/4 1100kv - cheap as chips but does the job. If you want to go posh the E-flight Power32 is really good. Prop is a 13x6.5 (for the Turnigy) ESC is a Turnigy Plush 60 or 70 amp. Limbo Dancer is fine but keep it light. If you need any more info on Fun Fly let me know. Mike

If you put the search term rx mount into thingiverse there seem to be some items of interest there

Take a look on thingiverse Neil. I'm pretty sure that there are files for indoor receiver clips on there, not sure about bigger ones though. www.thingiverse.com

I did look into ammonia, Bob, but apart from being difficult to source and rather smelly I read that the properties of the wood can be permanently affected too. Anyway the steam wand did the trick so I'll stick with that. I do have a rather understanding missus Pete. We met back in the '70s when I permanently smelled of diesel fuel from control line combat wings so she knew what she was letting herself in for . I need to order some wood before I can do the other wing so there will be a bit of a pause again. Don't want to wait too long though, I'm hoping to have it ready for the Ponty retro do, or at least the Buckminster one.

It's been a while since the last installment, life, holiday and a bit of illness got in the way. Also I'm at the point I haven't really been looking forward to, the leading edge sheeting. This design calls for 3/32 sheet to be wrapped around the front of the ribs, there being no conventional leading edge strip. This is some fairly extreme wood bending but I discovered that our Vax steam cleaner has a separate nozzle ideal for applying steam to jobs like this. An experiment with a bit of scrap showed that a tight bend (around a broom handle) could be achieved fairly easily. Some weeks ago I had already butt joined two lengths of 4 inch wide 3/32 sheet using waterproof wood glue. This was my first mistake as waterproof it turned out not to be. I should have known better really. So when I had soaked the sheet in water and started to bend it, the seam started to come apart and the job had to be stopped. After doing some fairly ugly rework on the butt joint with cyano I tried again. I started by forming the tight nose radius around the broom handle using the steam hose on the pre-soaked sheet. by working up and down the length a bit at a time a decent radius was achieved and the sheet was loosely clamped around the broom for half an hour or so to take a set. With this pre-form achieved I pinned the wing to my board over the sheet and started to wrap the sheet around the ribs, using the steam to help. This is not a one person job, Mrs Bell was pressed into service to work the steam cleaner while I did the bending. By the way if you wear Marigold gloves there is no danger of scalding yourself. The picture above is some final steaming going on after the main forming was complete and the sheet was pinned to the wing. No gluing was used at this stage. At this point the assembly was left overnight to dry. In the morning the sheet was unpinned and it was found to be nicely moulded. Now wood glue was applied to the ribs and the sheet cyanoed to the lower wing spar. The sheet was wrapped firmly against the ribs and then the upper edge was cyanoed to the upper spar, job done. More steam was applied to stress relieve the assembly and it is now sitting weighted down to dry. After I had calmed down from the initial disaster I must admit this job was not as bad as I had feared. Can't see me incorporating this method into any of my own designs though.