Hobby King Red Swan Balsa Glider Build Thread

[Joker 53150]

The carbon fiber locating pin at the front of the wing is now secured with a couple half-ribs and sheeting top and bottom, so I figure it isn't going anywhere without a fight. Sheeting on the top of the wing was a little more involved than doing the bottom as the top has more curve above the leading edge than the bottom has. To do it I first scuffed up the leading edge with sandpaper and gave it a little coating of epoxy. The top sheeting was then secured down to it, but only at the leading edge - I didn't glue down the rest of the sheet yet as that would force the front edge of the sheet to lift away from the CF leading edge. Once the epoxy dried I was able to use a paintbrush to put some glue on the ribs so I could secure the sheet down fully. Easier than it sounds...!




The wing's locating pin goes through a plywood bulkhead which would normally give it some decent strength, but in this case it's at the very top edge of the bulkhead and the only thing holding it in for sure is the balsa top sheeting, not quite what I'd want to trust. So I cut a rectangle of hardwood, drilled a hole in it, and inserted it into a slot cut in the top of the sheet. It was then glued to the bulkhead with a little epoxy The hardwood and ply together should be enough to keep the wing pin secure.




I didn't get a good "before" picture of it, but this is another one of those little issues with the design that I just don't understand. Lack of instructions don't help... On top of the fuselage right behind the wing is a gap about 1/2" long between the wing and the sheet on top of the fuselage. If the sheeting were slightly longer this would be covered up nicely. But it isn't... On the previous Red Swan build I used some scrap to fill it in - not a big deal. But this time I had a better idea. If you look closely at the back of the wing in this pic you'll see the grain direction on the balsa changes 90 degrees compared to the top sheeting. This is a spacer that I glued to the bottom of the wing.




This pic shows the spacer, which now holds the back edge of the wing centered nicely in the fuselage. I did something similar with the first Red Swan and it worked well, but now I'm killing two birds with one stone. The gap is filled and the wing is kept centered with one piece of balsa. I still need to decide how I'm going to bolt the wing down and where I'll locate the bolt(s), but there is plenty of time for that...! that little extra hanging over the trailing edge is all that is needed to fill the gap mentioned above.

 

[Johan]

Thanks. I'm lucky that I have plenty of room to work, an entire unfinished basement, although it is cluttered with boxes and other misc stuff. I was able to move enough stuff around to give me room. I actually have two work tables. One is a door laid flat on stands which acts as my "overflow" bench. There are currently four shelving systems to hold planes, parts, tools, etc. Last is my main workbench which was our dining room table when I was growing up. With the two extension leaves in it there is a lot of room to work. it is nice being able to work on the larger planes without knocking everything off the table...!

Oh, that sounds awesome!
I think it is rather nice to still have the dining room table around from the time you were growing up! It sort of keeps it all together in a sense. Not to mention the other work space you have.

In the Netherlands most thing are small, let alone houses compared to the US, not complaining, it's just reality

My only wish right now would be to have an "overflow" bench, because my desk tends to "overflow"

PS:
I love how neat you work!,

 

[xuzme720]

Sheeting on the top of the wing was a little more involved than doing the bottom as the top has more curve above the leading edge than the bottom has.

If you wet the sheeting it will bend much easier. You don't need to soak it, just wet it until you feel it "give". Try it on some scrap, you'll see what I mean.

 

[Joker 53150]

If you wet the sheeting it will bend much easier. You don't need to soak it, just wet it until you feel it "give". Try it on some scrap, you'll see what I mean.

Giving it a little soak of Windex also works great (it sounds crazy, but it really works!), but in this case I'd have had problems keeping the front edge down nice and straight so this worked better. It was a two-step process, but the results are what I wanted.

 

[Joker 53150]

Oh, that sounds awesome!
I think it is rather nice to still have the dining room table around from the time you were growing up! It sort of keeps it all together in a sense. Not to mention the other work space you have.

In the Netherlands most thing are small, let alone houses compared to the US, not complaining, it's just reality

My only wish right now would be to have an "overflow" bench, because my desk tends to "overflow"

PS:
I love how neat you work!,

Those of us with basements will often say they're perfect for two things - leaking and storing way too much stuff. 3/4 of the "treasures" we've got would never be missed if they were "accidently" thrown out. I'm slowly testing that theory, so if I ever go missing suddenly that may be the reason!

My pictures often look like my workspace is clean, but I do tidy it up a bit before most pictures. Here's what it usually looks like. Right now it's holding two balsa planes under construction, my Dynam AT-6 Texan which is demanding some attention, various tools, plans, etc all littering the table. The table, by the way, is 40" wide and 84" long, so it'll hold just about any plane I'll ever work on with ease.

 

[xuzme720]

Still looks better than mine. My desk is completely littered by misc. items to an almost uniform depth of about 6". It just seems to accumulate while I'm working on different projects and working the web. The Red Swan is actually being built on the coffee table. Have I said lately how much I love my wife?

 

[Johan]

Lol,
I think this might be the case whatever the amount of space we have (it gets eaten), some of us just have to claen up earlier

It sure would be nice though to be able to have stuff lying around while building and not have to 'clear it out of the way' every single night. I maybe just have to allocate some space for that and separate work area from hobby area

 

[Johan]

Still looks better than mine. My desk is completely littered by misc. items to an almost uniform depth of about 6". It just seems to accumulate while I'm working on different projects and working the web. The Red Swan is actually being built on the coffee table. Have I said lately how much I love my wife?

Well actually (apparently I was typing at the same time as xuzme720), xuzme produced an actually more accurate description of the situation at hand

So merge my answer with his and there you go

 

[Joker 53150]

The Red Swan is actually being built on the coffee table. Have I said lately how much I love my wife?

Sounds like a keeper! I'm banished to the basement for work, but since it gives me as much room as I want I can't complain. The only RC related stuff outside of the basement (or my car) is the USB cable for my ER9X which I leave plugged into the computer. Otherwise, there is no sign of my addiction other than stray balsa shavings that get tracked upstairs.

 

[xuzme720]

I just got yelled at because I was in the bedroom powering up the anycopter tri I just finished. She came in and asked "Can I have just one room!?!" Yeah, I have too much stuff, but I still love her...

 

[Joker 53150]

This is a pretty small update, but it shows the importance of thinking ahead when building a plane like this. I ran into this on the previous build so I expected it on this one. The horizontal and vertical stabilizers fit into slots at the rear of the fuselage. If you slide them all the way forward you'll find that the elevator and rudder will contact the fuselage as shown here. The problem is minimal, but if you don't look for problems you might find them AFTER the plane is fully covered! My tail surfaces are covered because I know they're in the clear.




The fix for this problem was fast and easy. A razor saw was used to just trim the tail about 1/2" giving me more than enough clearance. I just wish all build problems with this bird were that easy!

 

[airhawk]

ok we should make these updates to this plane here it is : This plane is made out of full wood
The update we can make is plates in the body of the plane. We could also cut the wings by an inch .also it would have to have these 3 : ailerons ,elevators ,rudder but less powerful motor

 

[Joker 53150]

ok we should make these updates to this plane here it is : This plane is made out of full wood
The update we can make is plates in the body of the plane. We could also cut the wings by an inch .also it would have to have these 3 : ailerons ,elevators ,rudder but less powerful motor

Huh?

 

[Joker 53150]

I've got the motor, ESC, and servos on-order, so time to keep pushing on so I can focus on a covering design. The aileron servos are mounted in the wings (although I had originally planned on using one centrally located servo instead), and as typical the plans for this build don't show much about how it should be made. The first picture is how my first Red Swan's servo access plate looks on the bottom of the wing. But how does it get made?




The kit only includes the main plate that the servo mounts to. No hardware, plans, or other information is provided. I used ideas from my 60" J-3 Cub to make it work on the first RS and will do the same thing on this one. Pic 2 is the starting point, just the mounting plate. Note that I cut a small relief into the wing spar spacer which allowed the plate to fit square with the ribs. The spar is at a slight angle and this would otherwise have the plate mounted at an angle.




Next up (Pic 3) is a piece that is mainly there to help with the wing covering. Without this piece there would be nothing to attach the covering to between the servo and the aileron (this will make a lot more sense when I show the pictures during covering).




Last are some small balsa blocks which will be mounted right above the screw holes in the servo plate. Without these, the screws have nothing to screw in to. Two of the blocks are pretty simple, but the front two needed a little more carving to make sure they weren't in the way of the servo arm or the wiring. These don't take a whole lot of abuse so the pieces don't need to be crazy-strong. On the previous build I added blocking to the plate so I could secure the servo with screws, but this time I might simply use a little hot glue.

 

[Joker 53150]

My electronics for the RS should be here any day now. I'm happy with the power and quality of the motor used on the previous RS so I'm going with the same motor on #2. However, I'm mounting it inside the nose of the plane and will use a folding prop. It's really been a pain to find a good motor with a long enough prop shaft the right size, so I'm getting a little creative on how it goes together. Once the stuff is here I'll know for sure if it'll work. I still need to order a roll of white So-Lite covering, but since this plane won't fly this year (unless I finish the contest plane early and the weather is unseasonably warm) I'm not rushing to buy the covering.

 

[Joker 53150]

After a few weeks away from the RS finishing up my Model Airplane News Contest "Navion" I'm back to work on this bird. I took delivery on the motor, ESC, and servos. First task was getting the motor installed. On my first Red Swan I simply bolted the motor to the front of the firewall and considered it done. This worked, but was kind of ugly and it also pushed the CoG slightly forward. This time around I wanted to do it better and get the motor inside the nose and use a folding prop. I looked at a number of motors and just wasn't happy with a lot of the choices. I wanted a specific prop shaft size that was also long enough to work with the folding props I intended to use.




In the end I went a slightly different route than expected, and I'm building a second firewall to mount the motor to, which will be mounted further back inside the nose. Before gluing the second firewall in place I can adjust the final placement so the prop is close enough to the first firewall. I can also add in a few degrees of down-thrust, which I found necessary on the first build to keep it from climbing under power.




The rudder and elevator servos were also installed so I can start working on the pushrod installation. I had considered completely replacing the plywood mounting tray to save an extra gram or two, but this piece gives the fuselage some strength to help make up for some that I removed by cutting all the holes in the sides. The holes drilled into the plywood don't remove much weight, but a tiny bit here and there all add up. In this case it probably just made me feel like I was doing something, more than actually getting a result.

 

[Joker 53150]

Testing of the electronics looks promising. My motor is the C20 1550kv from Hobby King, with a 15-18A ESC. The prop is a folding 8x4.5 which pulls about 9A with a 2S pack. The motor is rated up to 8.7A on 2S so it appears I'm running at the edge of safety with it. It has power to lift it straight up from my hand (although the plane isn't at it's final AUW yet). I haven't used a prop this size yet on a lightweight plane so I don't know what to expect (if anything) for torque roll under power, but it should be manageable either way.

The first Red Swan uses a similar C20 motor, but it's the 2050kv version rated to 11A on 3S. With the standard 5x3 prop on that one I'm pulling just over 10A and it's got plenty of power.

 

[Joker 53150]

Covering and pushrod installation is underway now. I'm not a big fan of how the servo tray is set up. You'd have to shorten the arms to avoid cutting into the side pieces - I did both of those on the previous build and this time just made room for the arms to stay full length. Also, normally I'd have the pushrod keepers turned with the screw up for easy access, but in this case that would keep the pushrod up so high it'd rub against the plywood fuselage former creating excess drag. Flipping them upside down gives just enough clearance, but it makes adjusting the pieces a pain. There is probably enough room to lower the entire tray which would allow this, but I didn't think of it early enough...




The pushrods are a bit different than the previous build as well. The ones that come with the kit work well, but are kind of bulky and I wanted to try something different. I've seen versions of this for a while, although I ended up modifying it a bit. The idea is that the "L" bend goes through the control horn and the second length of pushrod holds it in place. Usually this is done with one length of pushrod and the second "keeper" secured to it, but I didn't think far enough ahead and ended up with pieces which aren't quite as elegant as they could have been.




In practice it looks to work just fine and is pretty low-profile.




The pushrods appear to work out as wanted and give it a little cooler look than just the generic plastic pushrod ends. Covering on the tail is mostly complete, except for some finish details.

 

[Joker 53150]

Details, details, details. Finishing up a bunch of little projects now so everything is completely done and ready for covering, assuming it ever gets delivered...

First up is creating a way to bolt the rear edge of the wing down. The front is held in place with the carbon fiber dowel, the rear is kept in place by a block on the bottom of the wing which keeps the wing from shifting left or right, and now a nylon bolt is installed to secure it. The bolt goes through a threaded insert secured to the fuselage. It limits my access to the servo should I have any problems with it, but I'll take my chances, these have been great servos for me so far.




A nylon washer spreads out the force a bit. I'm considering sinking a small CF rod into the trailing edge to help it even more.




In the wings a pair of 3.7g HK servos are secured to the access plates. I used a couple old servo wire extensions to splice in a longer connection. I didn't want to trust a regular servo extension coming lose, and didn't want any excess wire if I could avoid it, so the ends were cut and the pieces soldered together - I've been soldering for decades so a bad connection there doesn't worry me much. If a servo fails it'll mean cutting the covering to get old stuff out. Again, a chance I'll risk. Heck, I really didn't have much of a choice as the servo plugs barely fit through the holes in the ribs. Getting a servo and wire installed with the wing already covered would be a miracle.




The view from the bottom, the servo is nicely hidden behind the access plate. A little balsa filler there still needs some sanding to pretty it up before covering.




Last for today is the canopy work. I ran a piece of balsa stock across the front of the bulkhead and stuck an ordinary thumbtack into it. A magnet was glued to the inside of the canopy which sticks to the thumbtack. When the canopy was installed and closed fully it pushes the thumbtack down into a thin layer of epoxy. Once the adhesive cures it is done, nice and secure. I'll try to remember to post a picture of the front of the canopy to show how it is held in place. I'm very confident that it'll hold in place nicely.

 

[xuzme720]

Glad to see you making progress on your Swan. Been pretty busy with work so I have been at a standstill on mine...I'm not complaining about the work though, the bank account has been pretty lean lately...