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The thread pitch is very close to 6mm x 1.0mm but I guess 6mm is sufficiently less than 1/4" (6.35mm) so will be too loose. You could use steel 1/4" BSF, I guess, or replace the captive nuts. Geoff

Yes me too. The other advantage (or disadvantage when you come to pack it away) is that all the overspray seems magically attracted to the walls.

I just heat the plastic up until it goes saggy, then place it down on the plug, switch on the vacuum and let it do it's thing - no idea what that temperature is though.

I wouldn't go as far as that Alan, you know me cannot resist the odd rivet or two ?

No rivet counting on this one then?

Love the seats.

Another masterpiece!

So now that all the excitement off the exhaust is done. I have moved back into the cockpit. I have done all the panelling that covers the interior of the cockpit. This is not scale so I have used a bit of poetic licence. The interior will replicate the bright red vinyl from the full size. Still searching for a subject, though may end up using an imaginary, but plausible scheme. Worked on the front seats today, just shaped blue foam. Steely eyed amongst you will see I have removed 75 percent of the bulkheads in the cockpit, but unfortunately the one behind the front seats is carrying structural loads so cannot go. It was only ever a flying only model to play with a four stroke glow after all. Cheers Danny

Salt water might not do the bearings any good ?

That's not exactly a plane view!

Well I used to throw mine around a bit (Not too wildly) and it never failed. The struts take a lot of that load.

Ugh. it would be like being in the 18th century. Anyone from Cornwall got a boat? Or perhaps a drone in these modern times ? I suspect we would end up in chains though. Smuggling is not viewed too favourably these days.

I have sent a PM to @Beth Ashby Moderatorfor you.

Well my Panther has now moved on in the build process with the fuselage now complete but after covering all three blades with old Solarfilm I was far from happy with the covering quality of application so ripped it all off and I am currently proceeding down the path of simply painting the blades. However the reason I post is that I am concerned the the rotor head mount is insufficient to take the loads induced by the blades having only holes at the rear for two M2.5 screws. There is insufficient metal to drill a third hole at the front so do you recommend that I engineer some form of shaped clamp at the front?

Thanks for the replies, it's certainly a minefield for suppliers and customers. The HMG excerpt that Denis posted makes it clear that suppliers should not be applying VAT on exports but either the seller isn't aware or doesn't care, I'm happy to pay the duty and admin fees for items that I can't source elsewhere, and buy knowing this, but not double VAT! The supplier in question is 4-Max, the website states that they ship overseas (excepting batteries) and has an online calculator for shipping costs (which are reasonable), it would be helpful if they also explained their VAT charging policy too. Steve Colman, I subscribe to the RCM&E print and digital edition - £72 a year delivered to Hungary, which I consider great value for money.

"warehouse" in N.I. ?? They're both in and out of the EU at the same time.

The VAT thing came as quite a shock to Laser and it was only because i noticed something i wanted to buy from Germany had dropped in price by the VAT amount that we knew anything about it. Consulting the various govt pages and our accounting people left us with 5 different answers on what we were supposed to do, all of which were contradictory. We do drop the VAT on exports but as i have mentioned before Laser have had to pull out of the European market (which accounted for 30-40% of our sales) almost completely as its simply not viable. Half of the packages either go missing completely or are returned for 'incorrect paperwork'. This latter point is rather sore as nobody seems to know which paperwork is actually correct as every variety we use gets rejected at some point. The half that do get through sit around for 10-12 weeks and then the customer pays around 60% the value of the item in fees and taxes, they then take another 2-3 weeks to decide to post it on to the customer where it becomes apparent it is damaged as they took it all out of the box and didnt repack it correctly. That or the allen keys fall out and they dont bother to put them back in. Add to this the added time wasted to fill out the paperwork, constant emails with the customer chasing their engine, chasing up tracking details etc means its simply not worth selling the engine. its just a nightmare and its only going to get worse now the 'soft' customs rules of last year have lapsed into the full fat rules going forward. While i cant say what the situation is at the company you used, i can say is that from my own experience dealing with it the whole thing is a complete shambles and i think we are going to have to set up an eu distributor as sending individual packages to individual people is simply not an option any more.

Yes, that is a good job,,, it was giving me nightmares, I dreamt that the bit that you sawed off fell into my shoe and made me limp all day ( my foot ! )

yeah Grey primer will go on top - this high fill stuff is really just used to fill any evidence of weave as on these gliders we dont tend to use the second 'flow' coat with the epoxy resin... Ill sand the yellow back smooth then add the grey before final paint.

Time to give some thought to the layout internally of the electronics. I am using a separate 2S power source for the RX (as the ESC is an Opto version). The Hitec servos are 6volt operating limit there I will use a voltage regulator with an in line switch. I can then check the working surfaces without the motor being "live" and just use heavy duty connectors to connect the motor directly to a 6S lipo. I can then try various positions for the lipos to get the CoG where I want it on the next workshop visit.

Another good session today on the A-10... The recently glassed nose section was cut back with medium paper and has had 2 good coats of filler primer with a focussed sanding in-between after a 24hr wait for it to fully harden. Surface is looking pretty good, just a few low spots still to address... In between waiting for the primer to harden each time round I've done a bit more glassing - tailplane lower surface this time and I've added some resin to the lite-ply end caps on the elevators and rudders - areas that dont naturally receive glass but still need to be painted. I'll soon have all these parts in primer too now I hope.

My name is Mark, and I am a LiPo abuser. When I get a new plane/pack, I have a couple of flights to see where I should set my flight timer, then pretty much ignore the packs after that.... I shove them on my chargers until they beep, them fly until my timer says stop, then take them home. Then repeat. I only check them if they start to obviously deteriorate or become puffed. I don't lose many packs even abusing them this way. But, I don't have any packs above 4S, and none of my planes need optimal performance, or push the packs overly hard. My little edf packs are probably the hardest worked but they have lasted hundreds of cycles - so far.

Very thorough ? When I've checked, my 60ish airframes are taking about 80mAh per 10 min flight. The smaller CB would presumably take a bit less. 800mAh nimhs should keep it going for a days flying without issue. As stated, old days, just used a 500 or 600 for the day.

Thanks EarlyBird. I did wonder why they appeared as download icons but felt life was too short! I'll quote my own post and re-add the images Graham Images now correctly added!

Set up a programme on the Taranis for servo-cycling (with RX battery telemetry logging) and ran some NiMh tests. Slightly differently to the video instructions above, I set the speed to 2.5secs each way with no pauses at the end-points, so 5.0 secs complete cycle. This is more similar to but very slightly slower than a standard servo-tester cycle. Used the five servos I'm due to fit to the Chilli Breeze (which are now well burnt-in!) 2 x Hitec HS225MG (rudder and elevator) 2 x Hitec HS85MG (ailerons) 1x Emax micro (throttle). All three batteries were fully discharged to 4.0v then re-charged using my standard routine for consistency, and this was done the night before so they were rested. The graphs below are self-explanatory. They were the second set of tests which were almost exactly the same as the first set. The AA 2000mAh Eneloop (graph shown in the raw without annotation) finished the hour with the voltage still nicely above 4.9v. The 2/3AA 800mAh held the voltage above 4.8v for about 50 minutes. The AAA 800mAh Eneloop dropped below 4.8v after only 20-25 minutes. So the answer is to fit the 2/3AA 800mAh (no point in fattening the 48" CB with an unnecessary extra 2oz that comes with a 2000mAh). This is the spare for my Ahi (usually flown for extended periods in bouncy conditions on high-rates with large/frequent surface deflections off four 12g metal-geared 2.4Kg.cm servos), so I'm sure will be fine in the CB for several 8-10 min flights off a full charge. I can check the current voltage at any time by just glancing at the large telemetry screen on the TX. My normal charger also runs off 12v from the field-box Pb and would take say 30mins to top-up, else I can carry a spare.

I hope I'm posting this correctly, I've only posted once or twice before). I recently finished this Magnatilla and had a successful maiden a couple of weeks back. It was a lovely calm day and after only a little bit of trimming the model flew very nicely - it does tend to climb a little under throttle, but it's quite manageable (even for a relative newbie like me). It's an electric set up (4s3300mAh) - so I thought I'd include an image of the battery location - all recommended and supplied by George at 4 max. . 4m