An idiot's guide to building a Barnstormer

[Nigel Day]

Thanks Jollifee.

Yes, I have.

But I haven't come to any conclusions.

I have half a mind (you need go no further says my wife) to try out the airbrush I bought from Aldi/Lidl recently. At some stage I'll be doing a scale scheme that needs camo, or other wobbly-lined painting so it'd be nice to have my first set of failures behind me. I'll be doing the Chipmunk later this year but I suspect that won't be an airbrush job.

My first/other plane ended up with a red body and tailfeathers and blue wings, elevator and rudder. I don't think that's going to become my default colours though.

[cymaz]

Red and silver, looks the mutts nuts (yes I know it's not a Barnstormer)? Can I come to Nigels maiden flight please.

Edited By cymaz on 01/05/2014 07:02:00

[Nigel Day]

Yes, that looks lovely Cymaz. Perhaps some variant of that me thinks.

You'd be welcome at the maiden flight - although I'd guess that it's a couple of months away at least. I could do with your help as if I don't get my Junior 60 airborne before then, it might well be my maiden flight!

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[cymaz]

Steady progress Nigel. Got an OS 91 fs in the Bi Stormer.

[Nigel Day]

Thanks Percy. I've moved and straightened them since that photo - from Pete B's advice.

That should go well Cymaz. My Junior 60's got an OS 52 but I've gone over to 'the dark side' for the B'stormer. Looks as though it should be a little asier and cleaner in the long run but the soldering malarky's slowed me briefly.

[Colin Leighfield]

Nothing "idiot" about this Nigel, it's going to be a good 'un.

[Nigel Day]

You're very kind Colin.

I'm sure that it'll turn out flyable, even if not up to the standard of the other Barnstormers here.

I hope I'm not an idiot but many of the questions I ask and decisions & assumptions I make will be idiotic relative to many with more experience. I doubt that few, if any, here will truly regard any of them as idiotic - just 'interesting' or the product of inexperience.

The idea of this blog, from my perspective, is to join in, to show a little of the way a newbie works & thinks and, hopefully, to provide a little entertainment along the way. Who knows, I might even come up with a new and useful way to do something - even if it's only to apply a sticking plaster!

[Colin Leighfield]

I've never seen anything on here that I haven't learned something from, and I've never built anything without messing up somewhere. There's always some kind of a codge under the paint!

[Nigel Day]

The last of the removable top sections is finally done - at least to the point where it only needs a little filler and sanding.

It took me a while to work out the best way to do it. I've had other examples to follow but since my top needed to be removable, it made it a bit more fiddly. I went for a one-piece top section in the end that sits over the two cabanes and includes the cockpit. It fits nice and snugly but I'll add a couple of magnets to make sure it stays in place.

It's built as a framework (turtledeck?) with four stringers and a support bar down the middle, then covered with 1/16th sheet. A 4" piece was just wide enough. Sorry, I forgot to take photos before I covered it.

The sheeting was curved using a kitchen cleaner I've used before for this and then wrapped it round a cannister/bottle of something, covered with kitchen towel and held in place with elastic bands overnight. Dried nicely and holds its shape beautifully.

Then I cut out the cockpit opening for the pilot my wife kindly bought me. You can see that she has an over-developed sense of humour too!

Cedric Courageous is his name, from Pete's pilots. He'll need to be courageous with my flying it.

Most people on here will remember Terry Thomas. Looks as though CC was modelled on him.

Now I need to finish of the fuse properly, filling and sanding, to make it look proper-like.

Then it's onto the fin and tail-plane.

Yee-ha!

[Martyn K]

I love that pilot. A real character.

Cracking blog as well

M

[Nigel Day]

Thanks Martyn.

[jolliffee]

I think the pilot looks like Terry Thomas, a very nice addition

[Nigel Day]

Thanks Jolliffee, that's what I think.

Was he in 'Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines'?

[Mike Etheridge 1]

Yes a Terry Thomas copy as below:

MJE

[Nigel Day]

Thanks Mike.

That answers that one then.

[Danny Fenton]

Reminds me more of Dick Dastardly lol well done Nigel

[Nigel Day]

Thanks Danny. I hope that you're enjoying the food and wine there.

The fin's complete (minus rudder) and I'm 3/4 of the way through completing the tailplane (minus elevators).

I just need to turn it over to add the second set of spar and pseudo-ribs and then fir the final bottom guides (for the fuse) and the top (for the fin).

Fortunately there's some good advice about how to get that right in the blogs of 'those who have gone before me'.

Piccies to follow when I've completed these two bits.

[Nigel Day]

Right, it's been just over a week since I last confessed - I mean reported.

Yes, I have been idle, but I've made some progress on the Barnstormer as well.

The tailplane was fun and not as awkward as I thought. It sits nice and straight on the fuse and the fin is upright too. More importantly, I reckon that it's no more than 1/2 a degree out of true.

I'm thinking that I might do what I did with my Junior 60 and cover the fine before gluing it to the tailplane. I left the bottom 1" or so of the Profilm loose and then ironed that onto the adjacent formers. Seemed to work well and made the fin covering so much easier.

The hinging went well. I've put three on the fin for good measure. the rudder moves freeley so there shouldn't be any significant strain on the servo.

The next job is to fit the control horns and the connectors. Then I can finalise the connection from servo to elevator and rudder prior to covering.

When that's done it'll be time for a bit of tarting up with filler and sanding. I'll need to decide then whether to build the wing or cover the fuse and tailplane. Decisions, decisions.......

[Danny Fenton]

Looking good young Padawa but 1/2 degree out you must try harder

[cymaz]

Poor measurement with the ruler he does ummmm.

[Nigel Day]

Thanks (?) guys - but please don't start me doing Yodish - or very long this blog will be!

Edited By Nigel Day on 25/05/2014 07:47:03

[cymaz]

Arggwggwwwghhh.

My best Wookie

[Nigel Day]

And now it's 'titter ye not' time....

I've been putting it off but I have a confession to make.

Remember back to when I started this blog and you all scoffed at the 'idiot' bit? (anyone?) - well now you'll see why I gave it the subtitle I did.

In my (rather pathetic admittedly) defence I'll say that this is my first foray into electric power.

I finally got around to getting all the electrical & power bits together and then soldering on the various plugs and connectors. I even thought I'd be safe/clever and follow Phil W's example and fit a deadman plug. Maybe that's where I went wrong....

Anyway, the time came to connect them all up to check that it all worked and I've since figured that I'd already made my first mistake - I didn't connect in the receiver and link it to the ESC.

If you think you know what's coming, you're wrong.

Whilst I wasn't proud of my soldering, the joints seemed firm and the heatshrink covering made them look half-decent. Anyway, it was when I connected everything together and plugged in the deadman that the 'fun' happened.

In my idiocy I'd wired the ESC XT60 connector with the wrong polarity. Yes, you can guess what happened.

Luckily for me the 'poof' was short and not very dramatic but needless to say, the deadman plug connections burnt up very quickly and the wires to the socket got quite hot. The wires to the ESC also got hot so I'm assuming that the ESC has had it's day. Well, obviously it hasn't even had that, but you know what I mean.

I've just put together another deadman harness (XT60 connectors to ESC and deadman plug, sleeved bullet connector(s) to the battery) so I'm about to try it all again.

THIS time I'll connect in the receiver to the ESC and make sure that the transmitter is on and that the throttle is set to off.

Before I try the setup again, and find the ESC to truly be dead, can anyone give me the recommended way to connect all the bits together for testing? Is there an article/guide somewhere about this part of electric setup?

I'm sure that Danny (and others) could see this coming a mile away, given my earlier questions about engines etc, so I'll add it to my growing list of lessons learnt and move quietly on.....

Edited By Nigel Day on 25/05/2014 10:20:04

[Martian]

Oh dear Nigel .

right keep it simple :- draw on an A4 piece of paper all the relevant parts starting with the receiver the esc the motor the deadman plug and the battery. identify all the positive tracks connect with lines on the paper .put together the hardware starting with the throttle connection from the esc followed by the motor connection reassure yourself as you progress that you have the correct polarity, double check before battery connection at this point do not connect the the dead man plug leave this out until you are happy you have connected correctly.with the battery connected you will hear a series of beeps these come from the esc but are heard in the motors coils or windings if it is all connected correctly the beeps will stop (by the way always switch on tranny first) increase throttle gently and motor should start to spin up do not use full throttle on an unrestrained motor. At this point the motor may not be spinning in the correct direction if this is so disconnect batt and swap any 2 connectors from esc to motor.reconnect battery and try again once you are satisfied it works you can if it helps label all connections.Now you can check your dead man plug this plug generally only interrupts one supply lead most often the positive (red ) lead..hope this helps

good luck