Member postings for Bob Cotsford

If you think a carpenter is expensive try hiring an IT consultant!

I bet intercontinental transport, warehousing, distribution, high street shop rental, staffing and advertising costs dwarf the out of the gate factory costs by many orders, even after tooling, design and assembly costs are taken into account.

Martin, I'm with you on Aldi/Lidl food products but their tools are hard to beat in terms of value for money. Poundland and Wikes CAs are effective glues but you do notice the increased nastiness of the fumes from them compared to eg Zap.

Kevin, is there some reasoning behind staining the wood other than highlighting the various components for photographic purposes?

If you then fill in the missing former parts between the stringers you effectively restore the full joint strength, albeit with a tiny weight penalty for the extra glue used but with nice straight stringers.

Someone has to say it:

Specsavers do my specy gear repairs

I take it the joiners are tubes? I have some solid rod from a Carbon-Z Cub joiner that I thought should be up to the job for the mainspar area, I think it's about 10mm diameter. Maybe a 6mm rod on the rear spar. I really can't deal with a mass of wing and strut bolts to assemble a model at the field these days so it's plug in wing panels or it ends up another wall hanging .

On the news the other night PNG palm oil production came up as the Korean owners of the palm plantations are expanding the area under cultivation. This is displacing native villagers and local wildlife as more land is taken up. I wondered at the time how this affects balsa cultivation as I'd imagine palm oil is a better cash crop.

I keep seeing comments about the 2030 deadline for the end of IC only car sales, do some people not realise that this won't include all the hybrid vehicles most of which are not plug-in so these won't in turn affect the electricity supply requirements? Pretty much every manufacturer already have hybrids in their line-ups with more models in the pipeline.

I've got boxes of bits like the pile on the right, it's amazing how often it saves me cutting into a new sheet. Can I ask what you are using for the wing joiners? I have a Royal Curtis P-6E kit with one piece wings that I plan on building with separate outer panels - eventually!

Solartex is listed as being 85-90 gm/sq.m, whats that - about 10gm/sq.ft or .3oz/sq.ft? Your figure will need adjusting for solid colours which will need a paint allowance adding but should still compare favourably. It certainly merits consideration for fabric covered models, though I suspect many will still opt for Oratex or Diacov for convenience.

I have a Curtis P-6E kit tucked away, I'll certainly consider silk over laminating film when/if I get around to it.

I had a look but it appears to be collection only, no shipping

Yes, I've popped an upgrade board in my X10S to play with Access, as I no longer have any D series receivers it's not something that would affect me either

Phillip, does that only apply to the X10 Access upgrade boards then?

Am I the only one who expected to see an old American V twin motorcycle?

I do like a yellow and blue scheme, it seems to suit vintage types. This reminded me that I have a Slicker Mite kit and an MP Jet 06 kicking around somewhere.

Geoff, I think that if you upgrade the iXJT board to v2 firmware your D series receivers won't work. Unless, that is, you upgrade them with Mike B's version of the D series receiver firmware.

Looking back, I've had one possible USM event that saw off my Jabberwok a couple of years ago though at the time I put it down to a switch issue. Without receiver output logging there's no way to tell. If I get bored over the winter I may upgrade everything but I won't worry if I don't get around to it.

Jonathon, to clarify George is recommending a 3 cell setup whereas the bigger motors are for 4 cell or more. Less cells = lower voltage which needs a higher kv (1000 rpm/volt) to get the prop turning in a reasonable rev range for the sort of prop size the model needs. As an aside, it also draws a higher current for the same power output.

Nik, the issue with using commercial retracts this way is that they are designed to take fore and aft landing forces at 90 degrees to the unit, when the forces are applied along the mechanism shock loads are applied to the actuating fork. This fork is usually the point of failure, I've heard of several Eflite units breaking off one arm of the fork just from the side loads of a cross wind landing. The same applies to the twist'n'turn retact units. As you say, the use of a coil in a wire leg is usually enough to take up the shock load. I bet an oleo leg wouldn't be as resilient.

ps - I like your dummy oleo units!

Do laminating films need an adhesive? I was under the impression that they came coated with heat sensitive adhesive but I've not tried them myself - yet!

I'm not sure what the can size has to do with it being used as a trainer Jonathon, you really don't need to load the motor to it's limit. Pick a prop to give the power level you want! My point is that a 35 or 36mm motor will be both considerably lighter and shorter than the motor that TN recommended so some lead may be needed, and the 5055 595kv motor mentioned in the first post is a close enough match. There are loads of motors that would suit, eg Propdrive 4248 or 4258 600kv, Eflite Power 46, Turnigy G46.

Has James stated he wants it as a trainer? I must have missed that.

Mine had a 3S 5000mAh pack and about 3oz of lead iirc. I could get a couple of decent flights out of one charge with that pack.

That Axi has a can size equal to a 5055 and is rated for 4 or 5 cell, remember that if you swap to a 35mm motor on 3S you will probably need to move the motor mount forward and add quite a bit of lead. 595 to 660kv is close enough to be an equivalent, it may need an inch less pitch at most.

Remember that at 65" span it's a lot bigger than a Wot4 so can cope with a little extra urge.

Is this 'application that is working well' anything we might know? RCGroups, RCMF or Aeromodellers perhaps?

Direct import or attachment of pictures, links defaulting to new tabs, word/author search as a minimum, subscribe button, 'go to first unread post' button and 'like' tags should all come standard on most platforms.