Am I getting old, or are things changing ?

[FlyinFlynn]

17 hours ago, KenC said:

Still tempted to head for the Kavan and epoxy

Epoxy is not better in this application, it set hard and the material it is fixing is soft and pliable with a smooth surface. The later CA hinges are ideally suited to CA glue and the bond will not break, the substrate gives way well before the bond. Add this to the possibility of mis-alignment of the hinged plane (lining up the hinges, not the aircraft!) causing the plastic of the kavan hinge to flex and work harden leading to an eventual failure. 

 

I personally used CA hinges cross drilled with two cocktail sticks, set with CA and afaik have never had one fail.

 

But......your model - your rules!

[Peter Christy]

Well, I don't know about new! I've been using mylar strip hinges (not even furry ones!) since the 80s without any issues! Initially I used to peg them with cocktail sticks, but these days I just punch a few holes in them with a pin, and then let the cyano do the rest. Not had one fail in decades, and on up to 60 powered aerobatic models...

 

(There! That's done it! One will probably let go next time out now.....!)

 

--

Pete

[EvilC57]

1 hour ago, FlyinFlynn said:

Epoxy is not better in this application, it set hard and the material it is fixing is soft and pliable with a smooth surface. The later CA hinges are ideally suited to CA glue and the bond will not break, the substrate gives way well before the bond. Add this to the possibility of mis-alignment of the hinged plane (lining up the hinges, not the aircraft!) causing the plastic of the kavan hinge to flex and work harden leading to an eventual failure. 

 

I personally used CA hinges cross drilled with two cocktail sticks, set with CA and afaik have never had one fail.

 

But......your model - your rules!

I agree. Although on a larger control surface with 3 or maybe 4 CA hinges, I only tend to drill and put cocktail sticks in the outer two.

[KenC]

I watched one YouTube boffin doing a Batman and Robin with his buddy on inserting CA hinges. He maintained that drilling or puncturing the CA hinge was offering a potential fracture point to its structure.  ..... yet with Kavan you pay more for a 6 hole hinge than a four .   Best accessory for model aeronautic construction 2023 goes to the very much needed bull$hirt elimination USB that plugs in and saves frustration.

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

Not putting holes in my pride and joy personally, if it needs pegging there is something wrong, cyano gets a grip you'd have to break the wood to remove.

[KenC]

23 minutes ago, john stones 1 - Moderator said:

Not putting holes in my pride and joy personally, if it needs pegging there is something wrong, cyano gets a grip you'd have to break the wood to remove.

John , do you temper your advice for IC or Electric builders, does the joint suffer vibration over time ?

[Cuban8]

15 minutes ago, john stones 1 - Moderator said:

Not putting holes in my pride and joy personally, if it needs pegging there is something wrong, cyano gets a grip you'd have to break the wood to remove.

A throw back to the 1970s and slick  Mylar strips that many people forgot to 'key' and dodgy, soft setting Araldite used beyond its shelf life. Think I've only had to change one cyanoed in furry hinge in decades and then just because it was looking a bit distressed  but far from actual failure.

 

 

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

6 minutes ago, KenC said:

John , do you temper your advice for IC or Electric builders, does the joint suffer vibration over time ?

 

Not on mine Ken, models get checked over from time to time, most failures I've seen are on ARTFs when the jobs been done poorly. on ARTFs I would go over them for piece of mind.

[KenC]

My fear ice is melting !

[EvilC57]

2 hours ago, john stones 1 - Moderator said:

Not putting holes in my pride and joy personally, if it needs pegging there is something wrong, cyano gets a grip you'd have to break the wood to remove.

Belt and braces.

[Nigel R]

Mylar hinges here. Pre drilled slec ones. Wipe over with ipa, rough up with 240 grit, glue in with canopy glue or similar. The trick is to inject some glue into the slot before the hinge goes in. 

 

Also used flocked hinges with cyano again without problem.

 

I find pinned hinges unnecessarily fiddly. Despite their mechanical perfection. 

[Nigel Heather]

23 hours ago, Piers Bowlan said:

When I first really got into aeromodelling back in the 1970s models were generally smaller and people had fewer of them. RC was expensive and unreliable. The Super 60, for example, was a ‘large model’ as I recall. Models and their engines and now motors, have grown bigger and ever more powerful with the advent of reliable multi-model memory radios.🤑

 

Perhaps smaller simpler models will predominate in future as modellers tighten their belts, and have just as much fun to boot. 😃

This is very true.  When I was a teenager in the 70s, RC modelling was out of reach for me financially.  The same goes for an aspect of another of my hobbies, airbrushing.

 

Roll onto the late 80s when I entered adulthood.  I had more disposable income, and bought my first RC trainer and airbrush/compressor.  Both hobbies were relatively expensive.

 

My start in RC was a Yamamoto high wing trainer, an OS 35FP (immediate regrets at not buying the 40) and a basic Futaba 6ch 35Mhz radio system.  I can’t recall exactly but I think that was around £500 which was a lot of money back then - graduate starting salaries were £10k compared with £30k today.  The airbrush and compressor was a similar story, basic Badger single-action, internal-mix airbrush for around £60 and a crappy compressor for nearly £200.

 

You are quite right, back then, you tended to buy a single model and fly it to death.  When it came to the next model you always tried to pick something which could use the engine and electronics that you already had - hence my regrets about buying the OS 35FP.

 

One thing that wasn’t so bad back then was building from plans - at the time I was never concerned about the cost of balsa or covering film - I recall that the price of covering your new kit was pretty trivial.

 

Then in the late 90s globalisation kicked in and technology, IT, RC modelling, airbrushes, became much cheaper, extremely cheap.  Being able to buy an ARTF foamy complete with motor and servos for just over £100 was insane.  And with a couple of decades of flat inflation the deals just got even better as our disposable income increased.

 

We are now seeing prices jump after years of flat prices.

 

From my perspective, I can see that RC models have nearly doubled in price but relatively speaking it still feels cheaper than than the 80s.  But I will agree that building from plans has become very expensive - once I considered them as almost free, buying materials as you went along was almost lost in the noise of your total monthly expenditure, but now, even though I am comparative wealthy, I blanch at the price of materials and covering film.  It says something when the cost of the film is going to be more than your motor and ESC.

[J D 8]

               I was in the same boat as you Nigel, for my first RC engine [ had a couple of little diesels and a Cox for FF and CL ] I had an Irvine 20 and while a good motor could only just haul my Rojair trainer up  So I made DB Rooky that I learned a lot with that could fly on one of my diesels.  Few years later was able to by an Irvine 40 that was just the job for the Rojair.  Cheers John.

[Cuban8]

Nigel's description of his early foray into R/C in the 70s and 80s  is spot-on and I recognise the experience described almost to the letter.

We've had half a century of cheap foreign imports driven by low wages and poor working conditions in those countries, and quite rightly this is being addressed - at a cost that winds up with us. 

I expect that a sort of Natural Selection will take place over the coming years, in that some people who might have given modelling a go a few years ago will baulk at the cost now and give it a miss. 

On the other hand, there will be others who are attracted to the new technologies in our hobby rather than balsa bashing and glue.

I don't have stats to hand, but I suspect that our hobby will struggle to maintain its traditional activities, with very sadly, top class competitions with large numbers of entries dwindling away over time. This is becoming obvious even now, which is a great shame.

 

Edited April 16, 2023 by Cuban8