[Cougar429]

I read through the one that has progressed through to this year, but with the later version with L/G figured it couldn't hurt to post this, as well.

Picked this up recently as a mount for a pair of Saito 65's and that may stay the power of choice. Will decide when I see how they fit. Would also be an option to swap to the 215 if I could find a source for the round engine pylons and mounts. Other than the gear, apparently those and the extra fins are really the only differences. It would be interesting to try.

Anyway, first impressions. Looked well packaged and no damage evident at first. So far the only problems that have come up:

1) The nose gear bulkhead was not very well bonded to the skin, something that is the case with some other bits in the fuse. Seems they spend more epoxy blocking up the blind nuts as all but one needed to be drilled out and retapped. I thought of knocking them out, but a few easy taps showed them surprisingly well anchored, (and the wood of better quality than most I've seen so far. Same with the main mounts). Added some epoxy/FLOX to bond the bulkhead to the fuse.

With almost nefarious regularity the hardware supplied with these ARF's is substandard. I drilled for the main gear and the first metric blind nut stripped with only light tightening. Luckily 4/40 bolts fit the holes drilled in the legs so in went some better quality bits. Biggest issue was the left side of the bulkhead was half over where the rear blind nut would fit so had to hog out the bulkhead at that location. The right side just required cleaning some excess epoxy to give a flat surface.

These got some allan head cap bolts to replace their normal machine screws. These fit the blind nuts poorly anyway so would have been chucked. Same with the nose gear block, something that required enlarging the holes as their anchors were considerably larger diameter.

I'm going to try a different trick than was use on the Seawind nose. That has a sleeve that extends slightly below the bottom and capped for water ops. This will use a bushing bonded to the keel and an axle of the same diameter with a processed head will be inserted into the block and steering arm for water ops. Will eliminate the need to remove the arm and linkage when switching dry to wet.

2) The dark tube visible in the center pics is the large control rod running to my modded elevator linkage. Even with their covers not really interested in running servos in the vertical tail for elevator and rudder. Using a steering arm with a modded wheel collar I am working to have that central in the fin. It required hogging out the tail to allow enough motion and that will be capped before the rudder is installed. I see in the other thread there is an opening in the top of the stab, covered when the upper fin is installed and I will open that to allow access to the horn and linkage for final installation.

3) Someone was having a bad covering day as the one pic of the elevators shows shrinking and wrinkling. Hopefully running my iron over that and other wrinkles will have enough to tighten it all up. Even then, the pull on the red edge will mean this goes to the bottom.

4) One other thing that may come back to seriously bite later: The ply laying on the top behind the wing opening was a vertical brace installed to the front of the wing bolt plate. Practically fell out as I was reaching in to guide the elevator control rod and shows that their glue job is horrible and that laser cut parts don't edge bond well. Burning the wood prevents adhesive from penetrating. I plan to replace this with better ply that will also extend lower on each side.

Along with the obvious main structural elements this could compromise I'm a bit leery of the pylon/mount assemblies. Will pay particular attention when unbagged to see if I need to rebuild or at least reinforce these to handle the rather more pronounced power pulses of a 4-smoker.

5) Visible in the last pic is the crack in the tail below where the rudder will mount. Wicked in thin CA and this may get some expanding foam later. As it is behind the main structure will have to establish if no reinforcement required for loads from the T-tail.

That's it so far. Heading down to the build room to see if I can fit a bit larger diameter elevator cross tie to give a more reliable linkage. Not something accessible later and a real pain if it fails.

This leaves one final trick that has been rattling around in my head. With the pylons running so far aft wonder if possible to hide the flap controls in there rather than all hanging on the bottom of the wing. We'll see.

[flyerinokc]

Hi Cougar! After much gnashing of teeth, rendering of clothing, and a lot help from the ADMIN I finally back on the forum. Thanks for the PM with the link I look forward to watching progress!

Mike aka FlyerInOKC

[flyerinokc]

Looking it over the airplane looks to have great potential for bashing. I think you are on the right track on the repairs and mods you have outlined. Have you been able to determine what brand of covering it is wearing? It helps if you can match it and not have to patch with a poor matching material or recover the whole plane. The pushrod tubes remind me of what came with my TF 182 kit I ended up replacing them with Golden Rods from Sullivan.

[Cougar429]

Slow, but a bit more work done this week.

First was to complete the control run to the elevator and rudder. Would have been impossible to do the second without serious cutting into an already fragile fuselage so decided to a more conventional setup. As it will be below the horizontal stabs and also have the supplemental fins relatively well hidden.

After some backer tabs bonded on I cut some 1/4" balsa to size and filled their original servo holes in the sides of the stab. Carefully sanded to contour, but there was still some damage to the surrounding paint. Here's the fun part. Wiping with methanol had the paint start to dissolve on the paper. Will likely be fun with the exhaust, regardless of the care filling the tanks, (not to mention the nacelles are similarly painted. Yay!). Some spare stickers covered everything up.

Picked up some more lite ply and good think decided not to fab and install the wing mount brace yet. Was already pretty tight reaching in the back to add a brace to the nyrods and route the lighting wires.

On that note, installed the red light on the tip of the fin before bonding on, (as well as the flashing white in the very back). Taped a long straight edge to the fuse and fin to align all the hinge points. Before that had to cut the bottom of the fin open to realign the water rudder tube. That was off close to 1/4" and would never have worked. Epoxy and FLOX worked here.

While there inserted an alloy tube that fit nicely between their original C/F and the wire. Would have been incredibly sloppy otherwise. Added a small fin ahead of the wire sticking from the bottom to help keep things from catching. Still have to figure out some way to make a removable rudder in place of their huge and heavy permanent rig that would have looked ridiculous on wheels.

So, fin is on and now time for the rudder. I opted for large size pin type with my own bent wire in place of the cotter pins, as well as Gorilla Glue to bond them in. This required marking, drilling and cutting into the stab itself for the lower hinge. In this instance there are 3 hinges spaced along the line and the water rudder wire will provide the lower pivot.

I have been using this G/G method for quite a while now and have NEVER had one come loose! In fact, had to recently tear the elevators off what was left of the AT-6 tail and it proved to be a real pain.

The key here is to use an alignment wire that fits through all the hinges. The wire and that area of the hinges are brushed with light grease, as is the surrounding area of the fin and stab. G/G expands quite a bit and sticks to pretty well everything, even covering, so that grease has to cover anywhere it may touch. I used electrical tape around the hinge notches before wiping with grease and it was relatively easy to clean up after setting.

The rudder itself required some work to fit the hinges and water rudder wire so it fit tight to the stab. Originally there would have been a considerable gap there.

Along with that I spaced the lower hinge to sit behind the control horn. Some pin poking and thin CA hardened the wood, but by careful drilling after installation the horn screws also go into the hinge itself. I try to do this with most installations as this loads the control right at a pivot point, rather than between them where the surface is unsupported.

Repeating the grease routine dropped the rudder in place, loaded it with rubber bands to hold it tight, (remember G/G expands) and connected the control to prevent it from flopping to either side.

Left it overnight and cleaned it up this morning. Careful drilling of the lower hinge and the horn is now permanently installed. A bit of wiping with polish got rid of fingerprints and now ready for horizontal stab installation. Not sure if that is the next step before working up forward for the radio and servo tray. May leave them for now to ease moving around.

A few minutes ago, for fun weighed the fuse and found 4.12 lbs. Not bad so far.

[flyerinokc]

I like that idea of running the control horn through a hinge of the rudder. I think I may borrow the idea on my current projects. Do you seal your control surface gaps with hinge tape? My youngest son works as an EMT for a local ambulance service while completing Paramedic training so he is always giving me the partial rolls they throw away. They don't share tape between patients to prevent contamination. I have several sets of clamps, scissors, and tweezers I have confiscated prior to being dumped in the trashbin on Emergency Room/doctor visits. I figure they are paid for why not recycle them for hobby use?

[Cougar429]

I've never found the need to seal surfaces. Using this rudder as an example, there is barely enough room to fit an Xacto blade in the gap.

Just finished fabbing up the servo tray and epoxy curing. Will look at the nosewheel steering linkage once that is done.

Plan is to have the dual battery, Rx and redundancy setup I am evaluating for FRSKY all mounted under the wing saddle. Final battery positioning will depend on balance, much further down the pike.

[cessna180]

I built a similar model for a client last winter. Did not install any gear. I set it up for electric 2X 5000ma 4s. One problem was that the batteries had to be in the nose for the proper C of G and as I put the ESC's in the motor nacelles I built capacitor banks because of the long wires from the batteries.
Michael

[Cougar429]

With the work schedule sure have less spare time now. Still, was able to get the nosewheel steering done. Had to move the arm to the top of the block to get at least somewhat normal linkage. Will trim that wire once everything ground tested.

The next step was to fab up a canopy frame to make the rig removable. Nothing complex here, but a bit difficult to get the spring release where I needed and then line up the receptacle in the frame. Added an instrument panel shade and other bits to increase the surface area for the bond. Used a permanent marker to tint this and the upper brace black. Nothing fancy as barely visible behind the plastic.

Right now the canopy is in place and will let it sit for a few days till the adhesive sets. Good thing I still have all those rubber bands left from the training days, (saved in a freezer bag they have survived since the 80's!). As you can see I dug into the bits boxes to grab just about every shape to hold it all down.

Hopefully with the wing off there will be enough airflow to let it cure, (unlike the Seawind and Rare Bear which took forever).

If I thought I could match the paint I would seriously think of getting the one from Parkflyerplastics as it is much better quality.

On that note, the paint on the canopy is definitely lacking adhesion and flex agent. Just look at it wrong and it flakes off.

[flyerinokc]

Keep at it Gary you are getting there!

[nrdingle]

Originally Posted by cessna180

I built a similar model for a client last winter. Did not install any gear. I set it up for electric 2X 5000ma 4s. One problem was that the batteries had to be in the nose for the proper C of G and as I put the ESC's in the motor nacelles I built capacitor banks because of the long wires from the batteries.
Michael

Hi Mike.

I am interested in the motor, speed control, battery setup you used for this model. Also, I assume you have a capacitor bank in each nacelle. How does this help with the long leads to the battery. How are the six caps wired up on your board.

I have an old Jack Stafford B-24 that I have been trying (unsuccessfully so far) to convert to electric power. I have the speed controls in the nacelle and batteries in the fuse so the leads are long. The 2 outboard motors are powered by one battery and the inboard are powered by the other one.

I burned up one of the outboard speed controls last year just taxiing for a few minutes so I have put it aside until I get it figured out.