FT Bloody Wonder - Scratch Build

[Eugene king]

I need to correct my one post. I meant that I used 1.18ah out of the battery not 1.8ah.

 

[MrClean]

I didn't paint, just left the blue painters tape on there. Lightweight, nice contrast, cheap and easy to replace.

That's just cheating right there!

 

[Eugene king]

Will these things fly without the tailfins?

 

[MrClean]

As well as any ship without yaw stability. They are overkill though. Did you have something else in mind?

 

[Eugene king]

I'm fressing over may be just something on top. I belly flop my plane and its not liking the landings too well.

I was hoping this thing flew a little slower before controls get sluggish. I may have too much expo in it.

But anyway just wondering if anyone broke one off and tossed it back in the air to see what happens.

For what I want to do with it a little more wing would be good I think. Or may be perhaps moving the CG to make it slightly tail heavy to hang on the prop more during slow flying. It's for the dogs to chase for exercise. And I was looki g for something to replace my champ for windy days.

 

[Eugene king]

My YouTube channel is EugeneKingify. It has some vids of the girls chasing the champ. As well as some FPV of the champ and my Hawk Sky.

It's a blast.

 

[MrClean]

Well heck, if that's the case chop most of the bottom rudders off so that it lands on just the fuse. I think most of the reason the fins are so big are for style and some of it is so that it will stand on the tail for taking off vertically.

Mine slows way down under control but I've only got a little 850 in there and you have about 3 times as much. That's gonna add to the stall speed.

 

[Eugene king]

I agree. I thought about a little 1000 or 850 pack. And buzzing off the fins below the body line. I just ordered a 2200 nano turnigy for my brother for Christmas. I should have added a little battery for me. What's another 8 dollars......oh we'll.

 

[Eugene king]

I do like the play time with the big pack. All of 30 minutes with the A21 motor and 8*4 prop.

 

[BrownEyedFool]

When Josh does his bevels the blade just glides along uniformly and the cut off piece falls off in a nice smooth perfect strip. When I do them even with a brand new #11 exacto or a new single edge razor blade, the paper argues, the foam balls up, and it looks like a dog's breakfast. So technique is obviously going to play a role, also will have to sharpen or replace blades at a ridiculous rate, have one of those scissors sharpeners around somewhere.

Today's lesson was also that mini glue guns cannot output enough hot glue fast enough to make a good Wonder wing, by the time the bead has been run on the spar the trailing edge glue is setting up. And this was a high temp mini, the low temp was ridiculous in lacking working time. Oh well, grab a big one and do another, it's not like the foam was expensive. The wing is likely usable it's just not pretty, I may finish a build with this wing and fly it banzai style abusive. The ugly one won't be getting masking and paint.

 

[MrClean]

I"ve got the medium temp mini gun and have no problem, perhaps yours is defective. Or mine is defective and running hot?

I have a whetstone on my building board. give the blade, even new ones, a couple swipes to hone em up and they'll slice right through, for about a 24 inch cut, then it's time for a little more dressing. NOTHING dulls blades faster then this foam. I think 15 pound C grain balsa might come in close but DANG.

A little saw action never hurt. Oh, and all no 11 blades are not created equal.

 

[BrownEyedFool]

Or I don't have enough experience with a glue gun, let alone this one, a new $5 blue one from Michaels (sme of them they appear to color code as to low or high temp). Might be using too heavy a bead, but can't get the three 20"+ glue beads laid out quickly enough to get the fold made before the glue has already cooled a good bit.

Exacto brand blades, I'll grab a whetstone, was told elsewhere those little scissors sharpeners are useful, guess not.

 

[Eugene king]

I pulled down while cutting. But josh said it takes some practice to make clean cuts.

I actually posted a couple questions on glue gun issues. Low temp doesn't work. So I tried my wife's glue gun. You know what, it worked great. It's a thermogrip C600. I do a couple of test squeezes when the glue comes out all full of bubbles it's ready.

 

[MrClean]

Might be using too heavy a bead, but can't get the three 20"+ glue beads laid out quickly enough to get the fold made before the glue has already cooled a good bit.

Wait, what? Where? I make a squiggily line down the spar and fold it over flat, squeeze it out and hold it. Then put a squiggly line on one side of it and press it down on the wing core, wiggle into place and hold it, then squiggly on top, fold the wing over press and hold, then press the wing down to find the line where the trailing edge will meet, if necesary trace along with a pencil and then squiggly line of glue along that press and hold. You are doing one line at a time yes?

Worse comes to worse, use a thin bead of elmers, weight it down flat and go watch tv for 15 minutes. Remember the old Alphiatic glue trick of gluing, wiping and pressing the surfaces together, opening them up for about 5 minutes and then if necesary re-wetting with just a touch more glue and pressing the pieces togeter. On wood do it with Ambroid. You can make stronger, lighter joints that way then you can with CA glue and way lighter then Hot Glue. All ya gotta have is time. Indoor Free Flighters who spend 5 bucks on wood a year and make their own strippers out of wedges and razor blades don't use CA. Too heavy.

Well, some do, but when you're whole plane'w weight is measured in grams, heavy glue goes a long way to poor performance.

 

[BrownEyedFool]

The build video that Josh posted is notably different in finishing the wing. The spar fold is one glue joint. Gluing the spar to the wing is another. Then he runs a bead along the trailing edge 1/2" from the edge, a bead along the interior of the bevel of the leading edge, and one along the top of the spar. He then folds the wing closed and holds it closed as evenly he can with spread pressure by hand. He notes several places in the build that this is a combat plane, so him going a little heavy in some places throughout the build is not surprising. I'm following the build video pretty directly for my first scratchbuilt. I'm sure it'll come out a bit of an overweight pig, but if it flies at all I'll call it a win, fly the hell out of it, and build a prettier one when it crashes.

There's also some possibility I'm not leaving my glue gun to heat up enough when I fire it up.

 

[Eugene king]

If you have the small low temp glue gun with the small sticks give up. And the heat well is soo small that you can squeeze the glue out faster then it will heat up.

I did the spar with my little low temp gun and using 1 continuous bead where I started it, it was set already. So I gave up because their was noo way I was I was getting the wing together like that.

A few members here recommended the battery powered unit from hobbyking. Know one else came out and said that "I have this XXXX glue gun and it works great"

 

[MrClean]

I have the Walmart 3 dollarish mid temp heat gun and it works great.

I forgot about the leading edge glue. I mean I didn't do it at all. But that being said you don't have to do all three joints at once, do one at a time fold and hold the parts in place while the farthest glue joint sets then do the next till you get to the end. Mine is not a combat plane and it makes a wonderful sport flyer. Hot gluing the leading edge will just help keep it from splitting during an impact. For that matter, with a combat plane you should have a piece of fiberglass rod inside the leading edge as well. Yes sir, some plank building days in my past I tell ya. Havent flown a 72 inch Gamera since the day before I got layed off.

 

[Eugene king]

As for the 2200mah battery being heavy. I will try out my brothers 1300 battery.

 

[BrownEyedFool]

Snagged a whetstone, small one, will have to order a larger one for more convenience. What a difference it makes. Made a bunch of practice bevels on scrap to get my technique down and banging out a new wing blank and doing the bevels for it looks 300% better. Of course I'm going OCD with the stone now like 10 strokes per side after almost every cut, and using 3-4 different types of blade for different cuts (Exacto for 45 bevels, utility for long straight cuts through, razor blade for servo pocket cuts, snap-off knife for the long thin bevels like the trailing edge). This second blank looks really good, will be a much better wing.

Got annoyed and snagged a beefier glue gun that handles longer full size sticks, so now I'm more in danger of melting the foam than having it set up too fast. So since I tended to get 2 at a time from Michaels when getting the little $4 ones I now have as many glue guns as I have types of knife/blade or different types of adhesive.

 

[MrClean]

Atta boy. I once wrote an article for a newsletter about how I had 14 Xacto Knives. I actually counted them once. But I tended to use mostly single edge razor blades. Seems I never can find a single one of them Xacto's when I needed it. They're on the bench, somewhere, but where I don't know. This and I was, I thought, pretty anal about using a tool and putting it back. Having two is good because you can take one with you to the field and not be in trouble about forgetting it there.

If you get a chance, get multiple Dremels. It will save you tons of time and fret not having to find and swap out tools. Hey, your dentist has several drills set ready to go, why shouldn't you?