Lazy Bee 2020

speedbirdted

Legendary member
Looking good! Looks like a monster truck airplane. It should do well flying from unprepared surfaces :p Trexler air wheels are so nice. I had a set of the really small ones and even though the plane they were on was pretty light they still had a noticeable effect on the landings. They're also a significant bit lighter than the air wheels Dubro sells...
 

rockyboy

Skill Collector
Mentor
Looking good! Looks like a monster truck airplane. It should do well flying from unprepared surfaces :p Trexler air wheels are so nice. I had a set of the really small ones and even though the plane they were on was pretty light they still had a noticeable effect on the landings. They're also a significant bit lighter than the air wheels Dubro sells...

Thanks! They are sure going to add a lot of drag, but the suspension benefits and pure silly factor are going to be worth it! :)

Very cool. Are the shocks going to work or are they for looks?

Fully functional 110 mm RC car shocks - I really could have gotten 70mm ones and been just fine, but these are in my shop now so I'm using them anyway. They are lightweight aluminum and really close to the CG so as long as the upper mounting points are built in now, it will be easy to take the shocks off and go back to the stock rubber bands on the main axle approach if I need to cut the weight.
 

OliverW

Legendary member
Thanks! They are sure going to add a lot of drag, but the suspension benefits and pure silly factor are going to be worth it! :)



Fully functional 110 mm RC car shocks - I really could have gotten 70mm ones and been just fine, but these are in my shop now so I'm using them anyway. They are lightweight aluminum and really close to the CG so as long as the upper mounting points are built in now, it will be easy to take the shocks off and go back to the stock rubber bands on the main axle approach if I need to cut the weight.
I'm loving this build. Awesome work man!
 

TEAJR66

Flite is good
Mentor
Absolutely beautiful!

Tail lights will be tricky. With those kind of skills, I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Looking forward to the finished plane and some flight video.

Great job!
 

checkerboardflyer

Well-known member
Next project - one of Clancy Aviation's newly release, 2020 Lazy Bee kits! https://www.andyclancydesigns.com/

I picked up one of the first batch of "Original Lazy Bee" kits which means 3 channel - no ailerons on this girl. The post-man did his best to mash up the shipping tube, but everything inside arrived safely anyway. Inside are a full size set of plans, a bundle of sticks, a bundle of laser cut balsa sheets, some laser cut plywood, a small bundle of bamboo dowels & some landing gear wires, and instructions. I'll share a picture of the instruction book too - it's a classic hand-drawn late 90's "To Build a Bee" handbook, and a couple pages of a 2020 Laser Kit update instructions too.

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After reading all the way through the instructions, I am following his recommended build order and getting started on the laminations first. That starts with tracing the lamination form shapes onto foamboard (two layers hot-glued together in this case).
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Then covering the edges with some sort of waterproof tape - aluminum ducting tape cause it was at the top of the tape stack.

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Next I stretched a rubber band around the edge and figured out where a toothpick would give a moderate amount of tension (maybe stretched to 1/3 additional length). Snapped a bunch of toothpicks in half and made sure they all hooked up nicely.

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Finally some balsa get's involved! 1/8" x 1/2" strips in this case - I squirted them down with an ammonia/water mix (windex works great too) and rubbed that into the wood for a moment (and pulled the rubber bands off the template). Then starting from the most flat edge of the template that still gets wood, I bent and rubber banded my way around the form.

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I did two strips first, and then did the second two strips on top of that so there is a layer of rubber bands trapped in the middle. Hopefully that won't cause some weird indentations in the wood, but I don't think the bands are stretched tightly enough for that.

Time to let this dry overnight - and do it a bunch more time on the other forms too.
Really nice pics! Thanks.
 

rockyboy

Skill Collector
Mentor
I might need to snip off a little bit of spring to loosen up the suspension, but it's moving pretty well still


The next task has had me scratching my head for a bit - how to put lights into the horizontal stabilizer...

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So I'm using pieces of LED tape that will line up with the holes connected with some flat wire to keep things thin for covering.
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But after I got it all together it was still a really rough assembly, so I'm adding a couple spars to make a thin airfoil shape out of the stabilizer to hide all the lights and wiring.
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Since it's a very slow flying plane I don't think the "lifting tail" will have too much of a negative effect - hopefully just enough to offset the added tail weight from the lighting :)
 

rockyboy

Skill Collector
Mentor
I don't usually install the horizontal stabilizer before covering, but in this case with the way I'm doing the wiring and soldering inside the fuselage I decided to go this way. Even with the shop lights on, the LEDs shine pretty brightly :)
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Rudder hinges installed - still thinking about how to do the wiring connection for the rudder.
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The rudder hinges are 1/4 scale ones with removable pins - which I've replaced with a single long wire that I will simply tape to the covering for the final install.
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Worked out the final motor mounting - drilled and tapped holes in the firewall for 4-40 screws and used plastic spacers to get the right distance out front. I did need to slice off about 3/8" inch of the horizontal balsa surface that was under the motor - otherwise the motor set high enough that the upper mounting screws were hitting above the line of the firewall. Just a simple case of "take the time to do it right, or take the time to do it twice" - I should have been much more precise in motor placement before I even started gluing the fuselage together.

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Time for some beauty shots!
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Time to start a punch list...

- Figure out rudder lights wiring
- Install dowel in fuselage and possibly reinforce a little more for the back of the wing
- Cover edges where hinges need to be installed
- Install and pin hinges
- Install control surface horns and control rods
- Cover
- Paint and install plywood landing gear slot surface plates
- Loctite and install landing gear hardware and motor
- Radio binding and programming
- Go Fly!
 

Bricks

Master member
Looking very nice for the rudder lights what I have done in the past is drill a hole in the hinge line and run the wire for the lights thru the hole, leaving enough slack for the movement of the rudder. For lights I use motor winding wire as it is insulated ( coated ) and adds minimal weight.
 

The Hangar

Fly harder!
Mentor
I don't usually install the horizontal stabilizer before covering, but in this case with the way I'm doing the wiring and soldering inside the fuselage I decided to go this way. Even with the shop lights on, the LEDs shine pretty brightly :) View attachment 188136

Rudder hinges installed - still thinking about how to do the wiring connection for the rudder.
View attachment 188135

The rudder hinges are 1/4 scale ones with removable pins - which I've replaced with a single long wire that I will simply tape to the covering for the final install.
View attachment 188137

Worked out the final motor mounting - drilled and tapped holes in the firewall for 4-40 screws and used plastic spacers to get the right distance out front. I did need to slice off about 3/8" inch of the horizontal balsa surface that was under the motor - otherwise the motor set high enough that the upper mounting screws were hitting above the line of the firewall. Just a simple case of "take the time to do it right, or take the time to do it twice" - I should have been much more precise in motor placement before I even started gluing the fuselage together.

View attachment 188139

Time for some beauty shots!
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Time to start a punch list...

- Figure out rudder lights wiring
- Install dowel in fuselage and possibly reinforce a little more for the back of the wing
- Cover edges where hinges need to be installed
- Install and pin hinges
- Install control surface horns and control rods
- Cover
- Paint and install plywood landing gear slot surface plates
- Loctite and install landing gear hardware and motor
- Radio binding and programming
- Go Fly!
Awesome work, I love it!
 

rockyboy

Skill Collector
Mentor
I did as @Bricks suggested and ran a silicone insulated, very flexible wire out the hinge line to handle the rudder lighting. Since I'm going to pin the hinges in place and want them installed before I mess with the control horn setup, it's time to start a little bit of covering!

The covering I'm using for this project is a bit rare these days - called Micafilm. Long out of production, I picked up a roll bundled with some other covering at a swap meet that diffuses light really nicely (like tissue almost) and should be great with the internal lighting. It is an iron on type film, but it doesn't have any adhesive on the covering film. While that might seem inconvenient, I think it's a bonus as some of the really old rolls of covering I've tried turned out to be garbage because the adhesive delaminated the coloring right off the film.

So the recommended adhesive for this covering is Balsarite 6000 or 6001 - but not the new 6003 formula. :( Since the new formula is what I have in the shop, I'm going with Sig Stix-it instead. That gets lightly brushed onto the frame where I want the covering to stick, wait for it to dry (and the fumes to clear), and then apply the covering with the iron around 240 degrees F.

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So to do the pinned hinges, the next part is running a narrow (1/2" to 3/4") strip of covering over the edges where the hinges go like the picture below.

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rockyboy

Skill Collector
Mentor
Now that I have a slice of covering on the edges its time to install the hinges. I'm trying canopy glue rather than epoxy for the plastic hinges this time - much quicker and easier to deal with.

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And here we are with all the hinges glued in and ready for drilling and pinning next.

Also got the wiring for the rudder pulled through. I just need to trim the wires and solder them to the pads in the picture once I'm sure the rudder can stay in place for a while.
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Once again I find myself disappointed with the flexibility of the commercial CA hinges - they are going to make the servo work harder compared to plastic pinned hinges or my home-brew floppy disk hinges. Since I have the CA hinges glued in already, I'll try hooking up the control horns to see if surgery will be necessary.
 

Tench745

Master member
Once again I find myself disappointed with the flexibility of the commercial CA hinges - they are going to make the servo work harder compared to plastic pinned hinges or my home-brew floppy disk hinges. Since I have the CA hinges glued in already, I'll try hooking up the control horns to see if surgery will be necessary.

Yeah, CA hinges tend to be pretty stiff need a decent hinge gap to give them the room to flex properly. Keith Sparks recommends cutting the hinges at least in half (depending on model size) to reduce the force required to move them.
 

Bricks

Master member
What helps with these type of control hinges is before installing them flex them over themselves in each direction so there is a crease in the plastic on the centerline. It might help to work the crap out of them back and forth to there extremes, these control surfaces are not going to move that far and if using a full size servo should not be a real issue.
 

rockyboy

Skill Collector
Mentor
Yeah, CA hinges tend to be pretty stiff need a decent hinge gap to give them the room to flex properly. Keith Sparks recommends cutting the hinges at least in half (depending on model size) to reduce the force required to move them.

Great idea - and something I was able to do with them installed too. Cutting about half way through them helped free up the movement a good bit.

What helps with these type of control hinges is before installing them flex them over themselves in each direction so there is a crease in the plastic on the centerline. It might help to work the crap out of them back and forth to there extremes, these control surfaces are not going to move that far and if using a full size servo should not be a real issue.

After the cutting and exercising the CA hinges (and adding the control horn and rod) the tough little metal gear servos are working just fine with both control surfaces now. No servo binding or chattering.

Time to add the rudder control hinge and get that control rod worked out.
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Now that I'm sure I'm keeping these hinges, I drilled a small hole through the balsa and hinge on each side of the joint, added thin CA, and drove in a toothpick for a pin. There is no way these hinges will accidentally slip free now. Also glued my fingers together - keep your debonder easy to reach!
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After freeing my fingers, trimmed off the toothpicks and quickly sanded them flush.
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Since I'm covering with the horizontal stabilizer installed into the fuselage, I use a 1/2" wide strip of covering folded "hot dog" style to make sure the joint is cleanly covered.
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And starting the covering from the bottom up so all seams point downwards - critical for wet fuel planes so spills don't seep into the wood, but it still looks nicest this way on electrics too! This Micafilm is a joy to cut - much easier than lightweight films to make those long trimming slices to create the nice even overlapping edge.
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I need to add a coat of Sig Stix-it to the edge of the covering where it will overlap, and then start the next pieces :)
 

TooJung2Die

Master member
That is unusual looking covering film. It seems to be easy to apply even if you have to use a separate adhesive. What does it look like up close? Is it a solid film or does it have fibers?
 

rockyboy

Skill Collector
Mentor
From what I've read, it's a non-directional fiber based film, and this particular roll has a "Pearl White" finish which is a really neat speckled white effect. I'm not sure if the fibers are enhancing the mottled appearance, but it's pretty cool with the light shining through :) Those dark black looking areas next to the balsa spars are the shadows of the other side of the rudder spars. Should be able to get some pictures tonight with the led's lit up inside it :)

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