Lucas Hofman Posted February 14, 2017 Author Share Posted February 14, 2017 Posted by Tim Ballinger on 13/02/2017 15:32:22: Not looked at the wing design much yet but the webbing seems like a good thought. I copied your firewall jig last night; then built it upside down which would have produced left thrust ! Now re- done for another try. Sun and wind today so I have managed to mow an airstrip on my field for the first time. Hand launching is quite limiting so pleased with that😊 Tim Hi Tim, Good that you caught that in time. I managed to glue the Ballerina firewall upside down, but happily spotted that while the glue was still rubbery - very embarrassing. It sound privileged to have the possibility to mow a field on your own property! Lucas (who will spend his lunchbreak on the ice flying the Ballerina - talk about privileged!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Hofman Posted February 14, 2017 Author Share Posted February 14, 2017 Lifted the lower forward sheeting last night and glued that to the ribs. The trailing edge pieced come in handy here. I remerbered from the Ballerina that the whole wing liftet from the board under this operation, so this time I put enough weight on the spars to keep everything down. The nails press the front of the sheeting up to the ribs, so there is contact all the way. I glued with Superphatic after all was positioned and checked. Cut the innen leading edge from 1/8'' sheet and the trailing edge from 1/4'' sheet. The inner leading edge needs camfering, which is a little fiddly. Better (but this I realised to late) to camfer before cutting, so you have more to hold while sanding. Placing the trailing edge is easy: The leading edge needs to wait until the glue on on sheeting is dry. That takes less then an hour. After that the sheeting gives a nice step to place the inner leading edge on: Lucas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denis Watkins Posted February 14, 2017 Share Posted February 14, 2017 At the beggining of the thread you wrote this Lucas I am not sure if a lighter model is less robust either. Material that has no function adds loads to a structure on impact. Last winter I crashed an ARF that was completely made of laser cuttet light ply. It went down, not too fast in 20 cm of snow but looked like it has suffered an explosion inside. I am sure a decent balsa structure would have had less damage. Explosion inside exactly, with the abrupt low speed stop, a shock wave richochettes up the model and snaps every thin former in its path. I believe your beautiful structure lessens this possibility, and your considered building Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Hofman Posted February 15, 2017 Author Share Posted February 15, 2017 Thanks for the nice words Denis. Not much progress tonight; one of the aileron servo's of the Ballerina started to twitch more when powering up than some my elderly fellow pilots. The model has now flown around 80 flight. Although the twitching disappeared after wiggling the surface a bit it did not give me a good feeling. Losing a favourite model because of a 6 USD servo failing would be painful, and downright awful if it has given ample warning that something was wrong. So out with the Turnigy 9018MG's and in with 2 new Hitec 65HB. 11 gram both, and luckily exactly the same size as the old ones, so the servo mountings did not need fixing. The new servo's have less play on the bearing and on the gears too. On Gentle Curves only glued in the blocks lining the cutout in the middle of the wing. And some blocks to put hinges in. I intend to make tape hinges (using the covering material), but if that goes sloppy I want to be able to fall back on tried and trusted furry hinges: The next session will be a dusty one; sanding the upper side of the wing, including leading and trailing edge to be ready for the top sheeting. Edited By Lucas Hofman on 15/02/2017 21:51:44 Edited By Lucas Hofman on 15/02/2017 21:52:10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Hofman Posted February 17, 2017 Author Share Posted February 17, 2017 The dusty job: The tape protects the ribs, or rather gives an indication when you are at the level of the ribs. Ready to receive the top sheeting. The wing is stil quite flexible in torsion at this point, so I need it pinned down to ensure no warp is introduced. There i a certain beauty in a rib / spar framework; a pity halv of if will disappear under the sheeting: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john stones 1 - Moderator Posted February 17, 2017 Share Posted February 17, 2017 Meaty bit of balsa around the wing cutout Lucas, gets picked up there John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Hofman Posted February 18, 2017 Author Share Posted February 18, 2017 Å good part of it will be cut away I think later John. I had not thought about that that is the logical lifting point. Today some progress on sheeting. weighted both front and back of the wing to prevent torsion: Tomorrow the center section and the cap strips! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john stones 1 - Moderator Posted February 18, 2017 Share Posted February 18, 2017 What's in those bags Lucas ? John Edited By john stones 1 on 18/02/2017 21:23:31 Edited By john stones 1 on 18/02/2017 21:24:44 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Hofman Posted February 19, 2017 Author Share Posted February 19, 2017 Steel shot. I have a colleague in Houston who is very glad in his guns and fills his own ammunition. He buys this by the bucket and I received a kilogram. I packed it in 50 and 100 gram bags. Very nice, it forms itself after what youi place it on and does not only give pressure on one point (like steel bars do). Lucas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Hofman Posted February 20, 2017 Author Share Posted February 20, 2017 Top sheeting in place: Trimming the sheeting and outer leading edge tonight. Maybe the trailing edge (inner part, near the cut-out) too. Lucas Edited By Lucas Hofman on 20/02/2017 08:17:42 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Ballinger Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 Looking good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McG 6969 Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 Nice progress there, Lucas. Very neat as usual. Cheers Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Hofman Posted February 22, 2017 Author Share Posted February 22, 2017 Tip work last night. I try to make the spar support the tip, which should make it much more solid: And filling in with wedges and gussets: Edited By Lucas Hofman on 22/02/2017 07:55:53 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Hofman Posted February 26, 2017 Author Share Posted February 26, 2017 Many other things to do lately (not the least a reparation on a Ballerina), but the wings start to look the part now: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Hofman Posted March 2, 2017 Author Share Posted March 2, 2017 Upper wing done (save some fine pre-covering fine sanding): The whole wing feels quite light: 50 gram covering material, 20 gr. lugs to make mountpoint for the struts. About 260 gr in total I think. Anybody wanting to share the weight of their wing? Lucas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Hofman Posted March 12, 2017 Author Share Posted March 12, 2017 After a week with no building some work done at last. I started on the lower wing. This one needs to be build in 2 halves. Same procedure at last time. First the undersite sheeting on the building board, so the ribs in place. I bought some jigs from SLEC that indeed make it a breeze to get them square: The starboard wing will get the brace glued in. I only glued the center rib on the starboard side, the port center rib will be glued in after the wings are joined. A little template gets the 1 degree inward tilt about right: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Hofman Posted March 14, 2017 Author Share Posted March 14, 2017 A little more done yesterday: made the brace and glued the brace and the upper spar in: And the servo mounting place + supporting structure in the wing. I do not like servo sticking out on sport/scale models, so I mount them "glider style" in the wing: Small bits take a lot of time! Tonight the planning committee of the community where our field is located will decide on whether out strip will be regulated to model airfield (or not). We have been flying there for nearly 30 years, but some neighbors would like to close down the activities. Cross fingers! Lucas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Ballinger Posted March 14, 2017 Share Posted March 14, 2017 Fingers crossed for you Lucas. It seems our hobby is under pressure everywhere what with the new drone legislation coming in. What do you mean about servo in the wing glider style ? I thought the original only had the servo arm exposed. What am I missing ? Tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Hofman Posted March 14, 2017 Author Share Posted March 14, 2017 That is what I ment - only the arm exposed. Many models have the servo's in the way so the whole top of the servo is visible. Lucas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Ballinger Posted March 14, 2017 Share Posted March 14, 2017 Lucas, Just checking you had not got some magic I had not seen ! That's my intention too. Not got round to the servo mount yet but it will have a hitec micro (hs81) each side. No building today got the horses paddocks to roll now that the weather has dried up a bit. Tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Hofman Posted March 16, 2017 Author Share Posted March 16, 2017 A little progress the last two days: glued all shear webs in place and lifted the lower forward sheeting: The advantage of doing this before mounting the inner leading edge is that you have a nice step to place that list on. Cuting lists that are not rectangular is (like the inner trailing or leading edge is made much easier by doing the planing and sanding before you cut the list free from the sheet: The sanding blocks keep the sheet in place during planing/sanding. You have something to hold on to. When the edge has the corect angle the list is cut free: It is so obvious but I had not thought of it myself. Read is last year during the Ballerina build. Cheers, Lucas ps. our strip is saved for now. But the local council want to regulate use of it more strictly. Still some work to do to prevent us ending up with a strip but few hours when we can use it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Ballinger Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 Was the issue with the field noise or something else? I had the idea you were all electric. Tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Hofman Posted March 16, 2017 Author Share Posted March 16, 2017 I reality yes. Formally the protest was against using agricultural land for something else as producing food. But the last hurdle has been taken. And yes, we have only one I.C. plane left and no new members are allowed to fly i.c. But since this is a IMAC training field these planes are pretty big (up to 2.7m wingspan). As a consequence they fly high and relatively far out. Propeller noise is audible but (according to us) not more than should be tolerated. However our neighbors think differently. Lucas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Hofman Posted March 23, 2017 Author Share Posted March 23, 2017 Back at the bench again. Glued the top sheeting in place on the starboard lower wing: Tonight this wing can be glued to the port half and the top sheeting done there too. Lucas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Ballinger Posted March 23, 2017 Share Posted March 23, 2017 Talking of elegance, those lightening holes in the ribs look really good. You are going to have to use transparent covering to show them off properly.😉 Tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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