TopModel Slash 1.6M Glider build/assemble

[Mike Chantler]

A friend has one of these and it flies really well in light winds on our slopes so I thought I'd get one. Have not seen much online about them, so thought I'd put some phots up as I assemble. Bought from Hyperflight in Sept 2021 and only getting round to it now!

[Mike Chantler]

It has a very light, already covered, built -up wing with, what looks like, a carbon spar with light balsa ribs etc. Come's with a very nice, very light, GRP fuselage with carbon reinforcement.

 

Images above from Hyperflight.

[Mike Chantler]

Comes in a variety of colours, but I got the last one of a batch, which is black with white under the wings. Friend has read which I think looks nicer.

[Mike Chantler]

All the bits come nicely packaged - and first tip, do not open bags in excitement, as all the parts are identified as belonging to particular bags 🙄

 

Instructions are almost totally diagrammatic, but seem quite clear if you have built some planes before: https://www.topmodelcz.cz/resources/upload/data/280_Slash el web.pdf 

[Mike Chantler]

Started as suggested with wing servos. I used some 9mm DS-140BBs servos as these just fit into the wing and come with wing adapter fittings. The silver frames I 3D-printed. (White bits are the wing mount adapters that come with these servos 🙂 )

 

 

 

[Piers Bowlan]

Very nice looking glider Mike, a useful size too. The carbon reinforcement is visible to the fuselage wing seat and cockpit opening area.  I hope the nose area is comprehensively reinforced too. I have an ancient Kyosho Stratos with a very lightweight GRP fuz which I reinforced with carbon tows but the nose cracked in an arrival. You can’t have too much reinforcement in this vulnerable area in my view.

Shame the Slash is showing out of stock.

[Piers Bowlan]

Correction… 3 showing in stock at Hyperflight… hmm 🤔 

Edited April 12, 2023 by Piers Bowlan

[Mike Chantler]

10 hours ago, Piers Bowlan said:

Very nice looking glider Mike, a useful size too. The carbon reinforcement is visible to the fuselage wing seat and cockpit opening area.  I hope the nose area is comprehensively reinforced too. I have an ancient Kyosho Stratos with a very lightweight GRP fuz which I reinforced with carbon tows but the nose cracked in an arrival. You can’t have too much reinforcement in this vulnerable area in my view.

Shame the Slash is showing out of stock.

Yes - good size, and versatile enough for holidays as well as light wind days up the slope. May add some kevlar to the nose. As mine is black it's very difficult to tell where the carbon is!  But certainly a nicely moulded, light fuselage and we have mainly soft slopes 🙂 

[Mike Chantler]

I should say that the instructions recommend 11.5mm ES08 MD II servos and provides servo covers with raised mouldings for them. 

 

The kit supply ply servo mounts, but I was not sure if you were meant to press fit or glue the servos into these.

 

So given I already had the 9mm servos with wing adaptors, I went for them.

 

The skins look to be  1/16" balsa nicely reinforced with circa 1oz glass or so at this point.

Edited April 12, 2023 by Mike Chantler

[Mike Chantler]

Wing Mounts

I skipped past the ailerons etc. for now as I wanted to tackle what I thought could be a tricky bit: drilling the holes in the right in the fuselage for the carbon wing location dowels. I found that marking the position across the width of the fus easy, but that deciding the height of the holes was difficult.

 

 

[Mike Chantler]

In the end I just drilled 1.5 mm holes about in the right place and then just gradually enlarged these with a needle file, repeatedly checking fit with increasing diameters of dowel. Just forced myself to do it slowly - not a characteristic I find easy. 

 

  

 

Ended up being much easier than I expected 🙂

 

[David Ashby - Moderator]

Watching along Mike, it's a model I've thought about acquiring in the past so will be interested to see how yours is. 

 

I built the Top Model Grafas Maxi 3.52m a couple of years ago and felt that a bit more could have been done at the factory (wing location dowels for one) for the money, but it all came out ok in the end and it certainly flies well. 

 

 

[Mike Chantler]

Glued ply wing seat in, it needed a little shaping as the wet(?) seam inside the fuselage was protruding down a bit and it was difficult to sand completely flat.

 

[Mike Chantler]

Drilled through nice little brass inserts in wing into fus and through wing seat ply plate:

 

Used some long bolts to make application of epoxy easier (always have fear of gluing every thing together here, eek!):

 

Done 🙂 and seems to be at right angle :and position phew(!) 🙂

[Mike Chantler]

24 minutes ago, David Ashby - Moderator said:

I built the Top Model Grafas Maxi 3.52m a couple of years ago and felt that a bit more could have been done at the factory (wing location dowels for one) for the money, but it all came out ok in the end and it certainly flies well. 

 

 

Yup, in this model the wing dowel holes could of been better aligned, and making the holes in the fuselage was a bit of a fiddle. But, for the cash, I think it's excellent. The light weight, built-up wing is just fab, and lighter than anything I would build.  And having seen how it flies in light wind, I think it is great value for money.

Edited April 12, 2023 by Mike Chantler

[Stephen Jones]

Looks Great. Watching too. 👍

[Mike Chantler]

👍

[Mike Chantler]

So I was quite pleased that I had just taken it very slow with the front dowel holes and the rear blind nuts 🙂🙂, normally I rush these type of things in the excitement and get epoxy on the moulding or misaligned bits and things start to go downhill.  I'm sure this would be an extremely quick model to build 2nd time around, but I found it needed quite a lot of reading, thinking and dry assembly time to convince myself I wasn't going to mess up (however, there is still plenty of scope with the rest of the plane!).

[Mike Chantler]

Tail: I stared at this for quite awhile trying to figure out how to get the blind nut in without getting it in the wrong orientation, or epoxy in places it should not be, or accidently gluing the bolt into the blind nut.

 

[Mike Chantler]

In the end I reverted to my usual method of replacing the blind-nut with a little piece of hard wood, gluing it in place, and then drilling and tapping from the outside.

 

 

For peace of mind did a test first to check the the wood would take the thread.

 

This worked well, but afterwards it occurred to me that I could  pf protected the bolt with release wax, and used an additional nut threaded onto the bolt first to help secure the blind nut in the right place, then popped some epoxy onto the back of the blind nut - will likely do it this way next time.

 

Diagram below to make sure I remember in next build!!

 

[Mike Chantler]

Had an idea for a bit I normally hate - applying the tape hinges. Experimented and discovered that if I used .4mm ply spacers, I end up with exactly the right gap for the hinge:

 

 

Worked well 🙂 and didn't have to tear it apart a couple of times when I misaligned 🙂 

[Mike Chantler]

Had an idea for a bit I normally hate - applying the tape hinges. Experimented and discovered that if I used .4mm ply spacers, I end up with exactly the right gap for the hinge:

 

 

Worked well 🙂 and didn't have to tear it apart a couple of times when I misaligned 🙂 

[Mike Chantler]

Did this for the ailerons as well, and was quick 🙂

 

 

plus .8mm end spacer:

[Mike Chantler]

Marked out horn for underside of T-tail:

 

Weird, never done T-tail before, and almost glued horn in back-to-front! 

[Mike Chantler]

Elevator springs up a lot with snake in place, and quite a bit of friction, so swapped snake outer for one of Hyperfligths larger PTFE ones.