Evolution Models Fusion

[Bruce Richards]

I bought a Fusion (www.evolution-models.com) yesterday, its a fun fly model in kit form that took many of the honors in the fun fly competition at the Nationals this year. I have been flying  (and crashing) a Weston Cougar for most of this year and it is looking a bit sad. I asked one of my club members to get me a new Cougar at the Nationals but he was unable to find one. I have also been hankering after a model to build after enjoying doing a couple of Wot4s. So when I herd about the Fusion it pressed all the right buttons and ticked the right boxes.

They emailed me the instruction manual in PDF format this morning. With 26 colour pages  it seems very comprehensive and with a bit of common sense applied it should be a fairly simple build. So I thought I would do my first build blog. When the kit arrives I will take some pictures of the content and let you know what I think of the quality. If the instruction manual is anything to go by it should be good.

[David Ashby - Moderator]

That would be great, look forward to that thanks Bruce.

[Bruce Richards]

OK first things first is normally the best way to go so I need a building board. The Instructions say at least 1270mm X 400mm. I have lots of off cuts from 8'X4' sheets almost all are only 1200mm wide, the only piece I have which is over 1200mm is made from 15mm ply. You would think that this would be quite flat but no it was slightly bowed in both directions so I fitted a 2'X2; frame to the back to flatten it out then stuck some cork tiles to the front. One building board ready for action. Kit is likely to arrive early next week.

  

[Bruce Richards]

The kit arrived today checked it over and everything was in the box plus an extra piece not mentioned in the instructions. The wood was of excellent quality and laser cutting top notch too and all well packaged. Fixtures and fittings not very exiting but up to the job.

 

 

 

 The pre-bent undercarriage is nice and save messing around bending it yourself (a job I never enjoy) it will need to be soldered but that's fine.

I have finish initial building of the fin and the tail plane, simple and extremely light. That extra bit was a redesigned piece for the tail plain. This was not detailed in my revision of the instructions but was obvious given the shape of the piece and the shape of the hole it fitted into.

  A bit of sanding now then on to the fuselage.
  

[Bruce Richards]

On the subject of glue. I decided to use mostly cyno for this project due to the speed. I have used a combination of thick and thin cyno. I have used thick everywhere except when pieces plug closely together and there is nowhere to put glue without wiping it all of during assembly in these cases I have just run some thin cyno into the joint. Where there are large sheet areas to be glued such as fuselage doublers I have used PVA. I will be using some Epoxy to glue in F1 and F2 (which is also the servo tray). The instructions suggest foam safe epoxy or UPOR for gluing the depron ribs. I have tested some thick cyno I have and zap thin and kicker and all seem to be fine on the depron.

[Bruce Richards]

Here is a picture of the tail plane with its spar. I forgot to add the spar before it makes the tail much more ridged.

The next two pictures are of the completed fuselage sides. The next step is to join these together but this requires use of the servo tray and I can't complete the servo tray until I have the servos and they have not left HK yet.
  

 Next step is to start the wings.

[Bruce Richards]

Wing taking shape all ribs in place and leading edge sheet going on. Be Very careful those dpron ribbs are very fragile until the capping strips are in place I managed to break one with a light knock.

 In this picture wing is nearly completed just needs leading edge shaped and wing tip applied.  

[Tim Mackey]

Nice blog there Bruce...keep it up !

[winchweight]

Sorry, did you say depron ribs? Nice idea.

[Bruce Richards]

Yes Shaun the kit comes with beautifully cut (CNC I guess) ribs which are SUPER light. The wing felt a bit floppy with just spars LE and TE but now sheeting is on and rib caps it feels quite ridged.

Timbo, thanks for the complement I was beginning to think no one was reading/looking.

[Tim Mackey]

A friend has a model ( forget its name ) which had foam ribs and convebtional balsa covering, worked a treat.

[birdy]

Poeple are always looking! The majority of the time I look at a thread I don't comment, and I bet that that is the same for most people! Anyhow, looks good to me so far. Talk of jealous!

[Bruce Richards]

Hi Birdy thank for the encouragement You have spurred me on to take a picture of the latest state of play

Don't feel jealous you will have a chance to do similar one day. It's me that is jealous I wish I had got into model flying when I was your age. I wanted to but never had the cash or the help to do so. Thus all my plans and projects never got off the ground. I tried to build an RC system from a kit but I never got it to work. I got here in the end and I am loving it and have taken my 12 year old son along with me!

Back to the Fusion build. I am stuck on both the wings and the fuselage waiting for servos. Posty tried to deliver a parcel today but I was out. I think this was the servos so I will pick that up tomorrow and hopefully we will have some progress to report later in the week.

I have been thinking about what engine to use and bidding on a few on Ebay (they all went for more than I was willing to pay). I have and ASP .36 in my Cougar and I am very impressed with it so I am leaning towards an SC .36 which I can get for about £45. Anyone have any other suggestions I should consider?

[Bruce Richards]

 Covering begins 

Fuselage nearly complete

[Bob Cotsford]

can't fault my SC engines Bruce, though I don't have a 36.  SC/ASP seem excellent value for money.

 How big is the model - it certainly should be lightweight.

[birdy]

Is that depron on the under side of the fuz, or is it just me? Also, I'll be saying the same thing as you said to me in thirty years time. Just glad I wasn't born before rc planes became practical!

[Tim Mackey]

bob cotsford wrote (see)

can't fault my SC engines Bruce, though I don't have a 36.  SC/ASP seem excellent value for money.

 How big is the model - it certainly should be lightweight.

DITTO

[Bruce Richards]

Birdy its balsa the only depron in the model is for the ribs rest is either balsa or ply. This model will be light I am hoping around 3lb 50 inch span. I do not need it to be fast but as a fun fly it needs plenty of power in a light weigh package. My other thought on engines is a TT GP42 it nice and cheap at £38 is light for its size and appears to have plenty of power. Anyone had one of these and care to comment?

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Tim Mackey]

yep I have TT GP42 here and it was / is a super little engine when installed in wifey's prangster.

[Bruce Richards]

Eric I accept your comments about triangulation a good idea which I will follow up. It should help remove the flex that is still present. The support batons are square section 2X2 (thats what I had in the garage at the time) but the picture makes the look like 3X2.

Thanks for the suggestion.

[Paul Adams]

Have been viewing the blog with interest, as thinking about getting one myself. Would be interested to know of any problems / enhancements you have solved / carried out.  Can not wait to hear how you find it flies. Keep the photo's coming.

Paul

[Bruce Richards]

Thanks Paul. The only problems so far have been all of my making:

• I dropped a bottle of CA on the partially complete wing and broke a depron rib. I just glued it back together.
• I failed to start the wing in the centre (long story) but just cut off the lengths of spar and TE from one end and glued them on the other.
• I managed to split some of the 1/16 LE and TE sheet due to ham fistedness. I just glued it back togethe.

As you can see I am not the best of builders but I aways have a solution for every cock up.

I can't wait to see how it fly as well. Unfortunately my flying is similar to my building but I do not always have a solution to my flying cock ups except repair.

[Bruce Richards]

Here is a picture of the finished fuselage ready to cover. Progress is slow at the moment because of the good weather. Any spare time is spent flying

[mr wibbley]

The chap that designed this model flies at my club. It all started when the famous Limbo Dancer went out of production. Some of us then made them from scratch from the original plans. I used depron ribs as it was far simpler to cut them out with 2 ply templates and a hotwire cutter, with the blanks between the two templates. The idea worked well.

 'Mr Evolution Models' was also thinking along similar lines but wanted to design a new model superior to the Limbo. I have witnessed many of the test flights and seen some prototype ideas. I have also seen the final product and can say that it is nothing less than spectacular. It blows all of the other fun-flys away. All of the parts in the kit are top quality and are exactly what is used on the models that fly at my club every day. The hardware pack uses quality parts of the same type as purchased from model shops, not as found in some cheap chinese ARTFs so there should be no grumbles about them.

As for engines, the favorite at my club is the TT42 which never give any problems.

Finally I should add that I am in no way connected with Evolution models or have ever recieved any favours or special discounts from them. However I must declare that there is a link on the Evolution web site to mine, where I sell Lost Model Finders.   ;o)