ACE Guppy Scratch Build
- Thread starter rockyboy
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Willy Nillies
Elite member
Boy that tail looks great and should be nice and light! Will make it much easier to balance out when the time comes. 
Sincerely,
Doug and Becky
Sincerely,
Doug and Becky
Thanks! It's a little time consuming to build this style, but it's really neat to see it come together
On that note, here's the vertical stabilizer and rudder all ready for covering - sanded to shape and hinge blocking in place. [Edit: now that I'm looking at the picture I realize I need to add some support for the control horn too!]
Back on the horizontal, I swapped ends with the leading edge piece, swabbed with ammonia, and bent it into shape for a night.
Then today I pulled it out of the form, added glue, and pinned it back into shape. In a couple hours I'll be ready to add the trailing edge and internal framing.
And I made a little more progress on the motor pylon. It's got too many weird curves to easily cover at this point, so I'm thinking to paint it. Started that process by spraying it with a couple coats of polyurethane to protect it, gave it a light sanding, and glued on the firewall with epoxy and put it aside to dry for a while.
I know I'm going to have some trial-and-error ahead of me to get the right motor angle, but I'll do those adjustments with washers behind the motor mount.
On that note, here's the vertical stabilizer and rudder all ready for covering - sanded to shape and hinge blocking in place. [Edit: now that I'm looking at the picture I realize I need to add some support for the control horn too!]
Back on the horizontal, I swapped ends with the leading edge piece, swabbed with ammonia, and bent it into shape for a night.
Then today I pulled it out of the form, added glue, and pinned it back into shape. In a couple hours I'll be ready to add the trailing edge and internal framing.
And I made a little more progress on the motor pylon. It's got too many weird curves to easily cover at this point, so I'm thinking to paint it. Started that process by spraying it with a couple coats of polyurethane to protect it, gave it a light sanding, and glued on the firewall with epoxy and put it aside to dry for a while.
I know I'm going to have some trial-and-error ahead of me to get the right motor angle, but I'll do those adjustments with washers behind the motor mount.
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Don't even need a big stockpile of balsa - just three of four kits worth of scraps will have everything for some of these smaller birds!
Progress this morning on the stabilizer... The little pile at the bottom under the weights is a pair of pieces that when glued together are a match for the thickness of the rest of the framing. I was just a little bit short of the right thickness pieces for the cross bracing.
Haha, glad to hear I’m not the only one...
bracesport
Legendary member
love all the mysterious clamps!
love all the mysterious clamps!
I've never met a clamp I didn't want to have in the shop!
Any time I see clamps at swap meets or sales, if it's a design I don't have already I pick up a couple. Always need different ways of holding stuff in place.
Enough parts are built up I can see how she looks together!
I notched out the elevator with a bamboo skewer to hold things together. Then I needed to temporarily clamp things together to see where the horizontal stabilizer needs to mount up.
And now that I know where it's going, a couple scraps of pushrod work great to poke through and hold it in place while I glue on a little sheeting to keep things aligned.
I notched out the elevator with a bamboo skewer to hold things together. Then I needed to temporarily clamp things together to see where the horizontal stabilizer needs to mount up.
And now that I know where it's going, a couple scraps of pushrod work great to poke through and hold it in place while I glue on a little sheeting to keep things aligned.
Willy Nillies
Elite member
Oh boy! You are at the stage where I bet your wife heard you making airplane noises in your shop! 😁
Time for hinges! Starting with the elevator I first put a thin strip of covering where the hinges are going to be. These are pretty thin pieces of balsa so I wanted to use CA hinges - but didn't have any in the drawer. Time to try something I've been thinking about for a while - floppy disks! Heard these work well for years now, and this seems like a good project for it. Sanded the disk with 320, sliced the hinge slot and then drilled straight in the middle of the slot with a pin drill to ensure there is a good space for the CA to wick in.
Two down, two more to go.
Then I'm going to try making a spring return from a guitar string and use a single pull cable control - DLG style
Two down, two more to go.
Then I'm going to try making a spring return from a guitar string and use a single pull cable control - DLG style
Michael9865
Elite member
I have wanted to try the floppy disk hinges as well. 🍿 I have a few floppies still in my old IT software case, it might be dos and Windows 3.11.
Floppy disk hinges are great so far! Thin CA works excellent on them - very solidly installed.
I also took a couple inches of thin guitar string - probably a B - made a pair of bends and jammed it into the elevator and stabilizer. Now the elevator is in a permanent downward angle unless a force pulls it up. We will get to that part next
I also took a couple inches of thin guitar string - probably a B - made a pair of bends and jammed it into the elevator and stabilizer. Now the elevator is in a permanent downward angle unless a force pulls it up. We will get to that part next
Time to hinge the rudder - same technique as the elevator.
And adding the spring wire so it's always turning right
Tail rough assembled again...
Before going further I wanted to make sure the single pull setup would work so I added covering to one side of the elevator, glued in a control horn, and strung a piece of kevlar thread to the servo - and it worked!
Now it's time to unstring the rudder, trim off the guide tube, and do some covering!
Oh yeah - and build the front hatch
And adding the spring wire so it's always turning right
Tail rough assembled again...
Before going further I wanted to make sure the single pull setup would work so I added covering to one side of the elevator, glued in a control horn, and strung a piece of kevlar thread to the servo - and it worked!
Now it's time to unstring the rudder, trim off the guide tube, and do some covering!
Oh yeah - and build the front hatch
That’s cool!Time to hinge the rudder - same technique as the elevator.
View attachment 162364
And adding the spring wire so it's always turning right
View attachment 162365
Tail rough assembled again...
View attachment 162367
Before going further I wanted to make sure the single pull setup would work so I added covering to one side of the elevator, glued in a control horn, and strung a piece of kevlar thread to the servo - and it worked!
View attachment 162370
Now it's time to unstring the rudder, trim off the guide tube, and do some covering!
Oh yeah - and build the front hatch
Hopefully it'll work in the air too!
