Matthewdupreez
Legendary member
but doesn't it have a screw on little thing that clamps onto the shaft?
Pacific Ace restoration
- Thread starter speedbirdted
- Start date
BlockerAviation
Legendary member
that's the prop saver, the rubber bands hold the propeller to the prop saver.
BlockerAviation
Legendary member
this is what the unit looks like without the prop
Matthewdupreez
Legendary member
so its different from the motor accessory that the flitetest guys use? does it make the chances of breaking the prop less likely?
Yeah, it's different. It's almost impossible to break a prop with one.
Matthewdupreez
Legendary member
does anyone have a link for some from aliexpress? I definitely need some of them those props are rather pricey, and do they work on the c power pack?
Can you order from this site? I have several of these and they are very good motors - perfect for C pack planes.
https://hobbycool.com/products/2832-brushless-motor-for-r
TooJung2Die
Master member
Just search for "prop saver" on AliExpress and you get hundreds of hits. They are made for all diameters of motor shafts. Just buy the size that fits your motor shaft. I have drilled out 3mm prop savers to 5mm and put them on threaded shaft quad motors.
BlockerAviation
Legendary member
Yeah I use them on all of my flat out 3d planes and I haven't had a broken prop yet. Just make sure the rubber bands you use are not Damaged, I've crashed a few airplanes from props deciding to go into a low earth orbit!
speedbirdted
Legendary member
I personally hate prop savers. I find propellers never hold their balance when using them. Currently this is the only plane I have that uses one and I have propellers going on 4 years old that do not have a prop saver. Now that I've been flying a while I never have prop strikes.
BlockerAviation
Legendary member
I get the struggle with the prop savers but, If you space the prop correctly and use the higher quality ones like the one that come with rimfire motors they work alright, especially if you know your going to be wrecking a lot. Personality I only use them on my 3d (and 4d) flatout airplanes because I wreck them trying new stuff every time I fly them.
Same - also having a well-designed motor makes a huge difference. On my gforce motor the o ring is so hard to get on and off and the threads on the screws eat into the band causing it’s to develop tears. My T-motor however has such a nice design and is super easy to use. I honestly love the design, but it is 4x the price lol.
Matthewdupreez
Legendary member
I will try although shipping to South Africa may be pricey
Matthewdupreez
Legendary member
thanks guy sI will get some prop saver definitely, because im definitely , going to crash my planes, but ill also get some normal connects, well because they come with the motors I am ordering
speedbirdted
Legendary member
Not so fast
Still needs wing covering. It's been far too windy and cold to really fly anything lately. Even my heavy pylon racer with a very much double-digit WCL doesn't like it. The first freeze was last weekend and it hasn't really let up since. I'm going to try and maiden in the big gym that my club has reserved for indoor flying. I think it'll be more than slow enough.Here's the nitty gritty of the pull-pull system. The horns have little pinholes in them which had the thread through them, however they were too blocked with glue and other crap to insert the fishing line through, and I didn't want to risk breaking them by doing something like sticking a pin through it to clear it out. Instead I used a razor saw to cut a very shallow groove in the horn and then tied the fishing line around the horn so it sat in the groove then just put a little CA on it so it'd never move.
This method works really well. I thought I would need to add some little shrouds to prevent the line rubbing against the balsa fuselage in a few places but it's very low friction so that wasn't needed. Because it's so light and simple I'd love to use it on every micro build, but the adjustability is pretty limited. I do have an idea about that though... I could put screws into the servo horns for the line to hook onto instead of gluing it there. That'd make it easier to take back out if the need arose...
A very nice way to cut fishing line I found is with a heated x-acto. It goes through it like butter. You can get very nice cuts in confined spaces that way because you need no force.
speedbirdted
Legendary member
This has lay dormant long enough. Time to get cracking! My workshop has finally reached a state of semi-organization, enough so that I can actually build stuff without other stuff simply getting in the way...
I got my rolls of willykote in the mail today. The pictures on the website looked off from the color on the tail but I ordered a couple different shades of yellow just to see if it would work. This is probably the closest I've seen anything get so I just rolled with it. The weight feels pretty good; significantly less than Monokote or Ultracote but not quite Doculam level.
I like this stuff. Feels a lot like Solite but it does shrink quite a bit more. Also doesn't need as much heat - I turned my iron down a bit and it seemed happier there. Goes around wingtips really well - the entire wing is covered in six pieces, two per wing and two more on the center section. I spent a LONG time shrinking down each bay between ribs little by little to try and get as much wrinkling out of the wing as possible. I would rather have a slightly wrinkly wing than a twisty one that doesn't fly right, as the wrinkles don't do anything aerodynamics wise anyhow. My level of skill at covering really frail wings like this leaves a lot to be desired but I got it to what I would call good enough. No washout, the plan calls for none, but I might twist a bit in if it needs it.
The Pacific Ace decal I drew myself with a sharpie. The original 1937 plan had them and you were meant to cut them out and stick them on but the only scan of that plan that seems to be available has the decals in rather poor quality. So I just traced out my own. I had no sticker paper so I used normal paper and then coated one side in transparent monokote for some shine and stuck it on with Super 77.
I know some of you will call me out on this, but I know the top spar seems bowed down in a few places. This is the covering's fault, even with the minimal amount of shrinking I did it still made the wing unhappy in a few places. The left panel is much tidier than the right panel as by then I'd figured out the technique a bit more Wish I would have added some 1/32 shear webbing, that would have stopped that. The wing still feels plenty strong - the spars don't bow down much more when I load the wing so it'll probably be just fine. Doculam or tissue would have been much better suited but wouldn't have given the finish I wanted.
And with that, I guess I'm done. You can see here the covering isn't a 100% perfect match, but it's close enough for me.
I'll get some maiden footage up as soon as the weather decides to cooperate...
I got my rolls of willykote in the mail today. The pictures on the website looked off from the color on the tail but I ordered a couple different shades of yellow just to see if it would work. This is probably the closest I've seen anything get so I just rolled with it. The weight feels pretty good; significantly less than Monokote or Ultracote but not quite Doculam level.
I like this stuff. Feels a lot like Solite but it does shrink quite a bit more. Also doesn't need as much heat - I turned my iron down a bit and it seemed happier there. Goes around wingtips really well - the entire wing is covered in six pieces, two per wing and two more on the center section. I spent a LONG time shrinking down each bay between ribs little by little to try and get as much wrinkling out of the wing as possible. I would rather have a slightly wrinkly wing than a twisty one that doesn't fly right, as the wrinkles don't do anything aerodynamics wise anyhow. My level of skill at covering really frail wings like this leaves a lot to be desired but I got it to what I would call good enough. No washout, the plan calls for none, but I might twist a bit in if it needs it.
The Pacific Ace decal I drew myself with a sharpie. The original 1937 plan had them and you were meant to cut them out and stick them on but the only scan of that plan that seems to be available has the decals in rather poor quality. So I just traced out my own. I had no sticker paper so I used normal paper and then coated one side in transparent monokote for some shine and stuck it on with Super 77.
I know some of you will call me out on this, but I know the top spar seems bowed down in a few places. This is the covering's fault, even with the minimal amount of shrinking I did it still made the wing unhappy in a few places. The left panel is much tidier than the right panel as by then I'd figured out the technique a bit more
Wish I would have added some 1/32 shear webbing, that would have stopped that. The wing still feels plenty strong - the spars don't bow down much more when I load the wing so it'll probably be just fine. Doculam or tissue would have been much better suited but wouldn't have given the finish I wanted.And with that, I guess I'm done. You can see here the covering isn't a 100% perfect match, but it's close enough for me.
I'll get some maiden footage up as soon as the weather decides to cooperate...
TooJung2Die
Master member
You did good. Looks great. You restored it to fly it, not look pretty in some museum. The clear yellow is good for visibility at a distance because it transmits light. Hope you get a chance to test fly it soon.
The clear yellow is good for visibility at a distance because it transmits light. Hope you get a chance to test fly it soon.
speedbirdted
Legendary member
You restored it to fly it, not look pretty in some museum.
Hopefully when I'm in the ground it'll end up in one
I can't imagine there are many around...I was off today and the weather looked decent enough, so time to go forward with a maiden flight. Normally 2-3 mph of wind is nothing, but that's to an airplane weighing 10 pounds. It's a little different with something that weighs a slice over 3 ounces! It got kicked around a little bit but it seemed to handle it well enough. I had the timer set to 5 minutes but I could probably get more flight time, a 500 2s is plenty.
How come every time I try to take pretty pictures of an airplane the stupid camera decides that the background is more interesting? Darn thing won't focus even when set to manual. I think I need a better one. Anyway here's the video...
Kind of a mixed bag of results from my perspective. The wing seems to function fine. It's still just a tad twisted but at least my efforts to equalize the twist on both sides seem to have worked. CG feels fine. Needed a bunch of down trim if you aren't flying at really slow speeds, which makes me think it's more because the thrust angle is just way out of wack. Most high wing planes have some down thrust, but this has none, hence why it wants to climb under power. At least the really iffy looking top spar didn't just collapse entirely...
However the real problems were with the servos. They... suck. I forgot just how old they are. I thought the problem with the neutral deadband wouldn't be so bad, but it was. At first I thought I was just flying with too much expo but it turns out they just have such poor resolution that they don't really do anything for a rather alarming amount of stick input. At least the elevator felt significantly better than the rudder. Either way I think I'll just get some servos from this century...
The pull-pull seems to work fine. The geometry is kinda off cause I didn't glue the line to the horns on the control surfaces in exactly the same spots on each side, so they get a little slack near the edges of the control throws. To fix it I think I'll cut the old horns off and put some toothpicks in their place. Then I can also install some proper hinges, or maybe not - the tape actually worked perfectly fine.
TooJung2Die
Master member
It flew great! I can't tell how it felt on the sticks but it looks like how you would expect a rubber power to electric RC to fly. They don't like wind and they don't like to be pushed fast. Climb up, glide down, repeat, and you get very long flight times. More when you catch some lift. Not much lift to be found in middle of winter though. Even the vultures are flapping to stay aloft!
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