Mini Telemaster Kit-Bashing

[rockyboy]

Here's laminating the fuselage doublers, top and bottom spars, and funny triangle tail piece.


Next evening I added the landing gear reinforcement and the firewall. I cut a notch out of the "square" provided in the kit so I could use a little clamp on it.


And later more fuselage formers.


And still later, even more fuselage formers. I like the little weight bags to provide downward pressure and keep everything square while the glue dries.


And finally putting the other fuselage side into place and clamping the whole thing with some weight overnight.

 

[Michael9865]

Love the weighted bags. I have a box full of BBs awaiting my time to sew them in a cloth sack, time to use them in ziplock bags. Some times the most obvious solutions don't come to mind, duh. I need more coffee! LOL

 

[Joker 53150]

The nice thing about using simple ziplock bags is that they're cheap & easy to replace. Cloth sacks would be nicer to use, but glue would stick to them if you're not careful.

 

[rockyboy]

Yeah, I haven't thrown out any of the little ziplock bags that show up with the various motors and esc's and stuff. Sometimes it's useful being a packrat

 

[jaredstrees]

Sure is! My wife always shakes her head at me about keeping old screws, bags and just about anything else I think I may have a use for in the future! But lots of those pieces of "trash" have come in really handy in this hobby!

 

[rockyboy]

Progress last night. This is holding everything square while gluing in the triangle shaped bits at the tail.


And holding things together while the fuselage formers are installed.


And then the side stringers held in place.


And the landing gear blocks.


And the nose doublers. Dollar Tree store is good for more than foam board. They have good clothes pins too.


Not shown is I realized I cut the main vertical spar on the vertical stabilizer too short, so I sawed off the old one and glued a new, longer one in place. Now I have three more hinge slots to carve into the bass wood, which is a pain in the rear. Anybody got tricks for that? I bent my hinge slot cutter doing the first two slots in the bass wood, and that's after using a dremel cutting disk to start the slots.

 

[willsonman]

Yeah, no tricks on that one to share. Doing big ones, yes, but small ones like this are usually the painstaking care of a #11 blade for me.

 

[rockyboy]

Darn. For big ones I will just drill and use Robart style hinge points, but even the smallest of those are too thick for the 1/8" framing members, thus the flat hinges.

 

[Joker 53150]

Here's a method that I use which might work - push the Xacto blade through the wood at the hinge point. It might take a couple stabs at it, but unless it's a very thick piece it should get through with some wiggling.

Once the short slot is made I can use my weapon of choice - a thin jigsaw blade in the Xacto handle. I insert the blade so it's cutting on the PULL and not the push, otherwise it'll bend/kink the blade. This tends to work very well for me and also works great when cutting a slot in balsa.

 

[rockyboy]

Hmm... I do have one of those thin saw blades for the xacto handle I think... I'll have to try that, maybe using a tiny drill bit a couple times to open a spot through the bass wood for it. I'm a leetle reluctant to try and hammer an xacto through the bass wood by itself. I like my eyes without broken xacto blades in them :black_eyed:

 

[willsonman]

Seems pretty sketchy... I LOVE IT!

 

[PsyBorg]

No way to use the dremel tool router? Or at the very least the long thin router bits and drag cut the slots? I have also made slots using jewelers screwdrivers in things. Amazing what you can do with the drag n spin technique hehe.

All these air slots for a scale MG 17 machine gun barrel were done with a round pointed jewelers file after the initial slots were pressed in the pattern with a jewelers screwdriver. I'm sure with time you could make slots the same way depending how deep they need to be.

 

[SlingShot]

If you've covered this, I apologize. But why "kit-bashing"? What's up with that?

 

[rockyboy]

@Psyborg - I don't have a dremel bit thin enough to use for the slots, but I have been able to start the slots using a dremel cutter wheel. I'm a little impatient for the file drag method, but I just might need to do that anyway to avoid wrecking my balsa slot cutter on this bass wood.

@slingshot - "kit bashing" does sound a little violent, doesn't it? As for the why, two things really.

First, I want to try and make this particular kit fly differently than stock. I've had the good old high-wing trainer, and not really interested in doing another 3 channel RET at the moment. I have limited hanger space, and want to replace a 4 channel high wing intermediate level flying ARF with this project. Cause that also feeds into my goal of replacing all ARFs in my hanger with things I've built myself.

Second, it's skill building towards a long term goal of designing and scratch building in balsa from 3-views. Making modifications to a kit with specific goals in mind is a learning experience, whether the end result works like intended or not. The rudder mod is a little thing, but the wing changes I'm planning are pretty extensive and in the process I'll learn more about what does and doesn't work from a structural and performance perspective.

And I suppose there is a third reason too. It'll be fun to have a Telemaster that will make old timers do a double take at the field

 

[PsyBorg]

Just tossing out ideas. I have no clue what works for building, what is traditional, and where that line of hrrmmm and hahahaha is suggestion wise. I just sit back and watch you and Josh and the other balsa builders here and soak up as much info as possible. I just prod with my strange ideas occasionally to keep the creativity and teaching going from you guys mainly since I have zero clue in all reality.

 

[rockyboy]

Just tossing out ideas. I have no clue what works for building, what is traditional, and where that line of hrrmmm and hahahaha is suggestion wise. I just sit back and watch you and Josh and the other balsa builders here and soak up as much info as possible. I just prod with my strange ideas occasionally to keep the creativity and teaching going from you guys mainly since I have zero clue in all reality.

Actually, I barely have a clue at all and am pretty much making it up as I go.

But don't tell anyone else, OK? I'm trying to keep up appearances

 

[rockyboy]

Last night was gluing in the wind shield...


And the parts for the battery hatch


Here's assembling the fuselage sheeting. They don't explain this at all in the instructions, but the idea is take two pieces with the grain parallel to each other and stick them together with masking tape. Then bend open the joint, fill with glue, fold it back flat and wipe off the squeeze out. Hold flat till it dries and you've got cross grain sheeting for the fuse!


And here's attaching the front sheeting piece to the fuselage.


This morning I glued on the back sheeting piece.


And this concludes the fuselage construction.

We'll continue the program with the wing construction after the break.

 

[SlingShot]

OK. Bash on! And good luck. I hope you get a good flyer out of it.

 

[rockyboy]

 

[PsyBorg]

Pssst..hey Jonathan.... Aren't windshields supposed to be see thru? I don't think you will get down the runway with the way you did this.

Kind of hard to see on the rudder assy. Is that just tape holding it to the stab or is that the hinges I can see? Or did you manage to get them properly done with the tiny saws?