Tools you can make yourself

[kc]

The old ideas are often the best!

A very simple jig can be used with the hacksaw blades to make sure all the cuts are the same depth.

[Chuck Plains]

I decided to revive this excellent thread as I felt it deserved attention for the excellent ideas posted by various folks.

A general sanding block for balsa and foam. I simply used Poundland double sided foam tape to stick a piece of drywall sanding screen to my selected piece of wood. Then, because it was longer than the wood, I hot glued the ends around the radius (my idea) end of the block. As an afterthought, I ground some grooves into the long sides to give my fingers something to hold on to. I may or may not put a higher block on the back, maybe with Velcro so I can move it or remove it.

Ok, I made two different ones, one with the foam pads and one with plain double sided tape. Neither have come unstuck in 18 months.

It's pretty coarse, but obviously quickly because of that.

This stuff never clogs up, doesn't tear foam if you work steadily and you can vacuum it every once in a while to clear what may be retained in the gaps.

[Mark Kettle 1]

Some good ideas here .

[Stephen Jones]

Not sure this is the place for this video, But there are some home made wood cutting tools shown in this Video.

Just shows how inventive we can all be.

Look out for the Heliicopter.

Steve.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Trevor]

Faced with a colour scheme that involved some overlapping of different coloured covering film, I wanted to reduce the risk of trapped air bubbles by perforating the area of film to be overlapped.

With the aid of a piece of double sided adhesive tape, a few pins were positioned on a piece of 1/8in scrap balsa. A second piece of balsa was then glued in place to sandwich the pins, and the whole lot trapped in the vice for the glue to dry. If you’ve got a large area to treat, one or two additional rows of pins could be added if desired. The device does look a bit lethal so I use an offcut of soft 1/4sq balsa as a blade guard.

A picture can be found in the April diary entry on this page: **LINK**

Very crude but works a treat.

Trevor

[PatMc]

Simple aids for cutting the accurate vertical & diagonal strips between longerons on some scale &/or vintage style fuselages.

Take a couple of minutes to make from scrap spruce or similar hardwood strips. The small overhanging blocks need to be slightly thicker than the strip being cut.
The initial cut mark is made with a scalpel, actual cut completed with a razor saw. Other than that I don't think they really need further explanation.

[leccyflyer]

A real pain IMO is fitting captive nuts for motor mounts into firewalls, especially retrofitting them to older airframes for electric conversions, as access is often tricky. I made up a tool to assist, as pictured, which is just a threaded pushrod, bent to be able to access the firewall from the big hole in the fuselage of a battery hatch, wing seat or other access point..

The threaded rod is inserted through the firewall from the front, squirrreled round to exit through the hatch, or fuselage opening and the captive nut is threaded on to the threaded end. The assembly is then pulled back through the firewall and can be given a dose of pulling on the free end to engage the spikes on the captive nut into the wood. Then the threaded rod is screwed out, leaving the captive nut in place, engaged with the fire wall. I then take an appropriate bolt, withe w washer to spread the load and tighten that into the captive nut, pulling ot firmly into place.

Remove the bolt, rinse and repeat and very soon four captive nuts are installed, without any of the hassles involved in locating them deep inside the fuselage. A piece of snake could be substituted, for smaller diameter captive nuts, but having used that method previously I find the bent rod superior. I choose not to use a dab of epoxy on the captive nuts, but that could be incorporated into the method.

[kc]

 

I am glad that after 10 years the thread i started is still being viewed.....

 

My most used gadget is my improved type of carpenters bench hook with square block underneath that fits in the vice or Workmate parallel or at right angles.

 

It's not very obvious in the photo that here is a 'guide' cut to ensure the saw is exactly at 9o degrees vertical and horizontal.   Also a replaceable hardboard top to take the wear from constant sawing.

Edited By kc on 20/08/2020 11:25:30

[kc]

Hardly a tool but a gadget I use a lot is the 'clip' to hold spars down onto the building board - works well on plasterboard. Far more secure than pins.

The clips are made by glueing a strip of ply which is slightly thinner than the spar - eg 6mm ply for 6.5mm spars - to a thin ply top part. When the glue is dry the holes are drilled and then sawn into separate clips. Make about 8 the same size. Takes very little time to make a set. In use make sure the screw will be removeable - place outside rather than inside the D box section!

Edited By kc on 20/08/2020 11:18:35

[Nigel R]

A PDF copy of Peter Holland's book 'Model Aircraft Building Sketch by Sketch' is on the outerzone sister site, RCLibrary:

**LINK**

lots of small hints in there.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[cymaz]

 

 

HERE

I made one of **THESE** from odds and sods I had lying about. The Bob weight was a fuel clunk

Edited By cymaz on 01/11/2020 06:42:39

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Fun Flyer]

I made an Incidence Gauge which was published in the mag a few years ago. It used a mobile phone with the Clinometer App and still works very well.

[john davidson 1]

Scalpels and craft knives can be easily returned to razor sharpness with a few strokes of a steel, , rather than thrown away. The tricky bit is smuggling the steel out of the kitchen cutlery drawer unobserved by you know who

[MaxG]

Posted by john davidson 1 on 01/11/2020 15:01:58:

Scalpels and craft knives can be easily returned to razor sharpness with a few strokes of a steel, , rather than thrown away. The tricky bit is smuggling the steel out of the kitchen cutlery drawer unobserved by you know who

Keep you eyes open for the diamond sharpening tools sold by Lidl at times. Saves the grief of nicking stuff from the kitchen. While you are at it buy two, one for kitchen and the other for the workshop. A cheap way of avoiding grief, take it from one who knows!!!!

Maxg

[Peter Miller]

I always used an Arkansas slip stone. I could bring an Exacto blade up so it would shave the hairs of gthe back of my hand

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[john davidson 1]

For a demonstration of sharpness its better to use some one elses hand or forearm, the hard bit is getting them to stay still

[Bob Cotsford]

I'm still using oilstones, a few wipes each side of the blade and they're good enough to trim covering film again.

[kc]

The elderly craftsman who used to demonstrate marquetry at exhibitions years ago also demonstrated sharpening the scalpel by cutting the tip back on an oilstone to reach a fresh part of the blade. He domonstrated that it works, but I preferred to use a leather strop loaded with fine abrasive ( dried out Jif,Cif etc ) with oil. Piece of scrap leather ( shoe tongue etc) for the strop works a treat also on planeblades, chisels etc.

But even better is to use two scalpels - one with a brand new blade at the start of a new model and the other a used blade for general workshop use. Same with a Stanley knife - one a new blade for fine work, another for general use.

[kc]

Here is a gadget for inserting threaded ends into 'snake' inners.

Simply an opened out metal clevis with a bolt to 'locknut' the threaded end so that it is gripped and can be screwed into the snake.   Unscrewing the bolt a fraction of a turn releases the threaded end when the job is done.

gadget1

 

Edited February 22, 2021 by kc

[Gary Manuel]

I would imagine that the same tool could be used for screwing threaded rod into ball joint fittings, or any other fitting for that matter.

[kc]

This thread is pretty old now but it has a few ideas that are still worth looking at ...... I particuarly like PatMac's idea for marking lengths on built up fuselage verticals and diagonals.