Psyborgs DGA-6 Mulligan group build thread.
- Thread starter PsyBorg
- Start date
mayan
Legendary member
Amazing understanding of the way to build the wheel pants.So. 5am came and along with it back spasms making sleep impossible. So i got up fired up the coffee pot and the glue gun in that order. I worked a little on the landing gear yesterday getting the front mount completed with the welding wire glued in and shaped. I was going to leave it at that for now until @mayan had shown us what he did but being up so early I got motivated fast. Figured running the tiny air compressor to paint would not be nice to the neighbors as it would surely arouse their barking rats and have everyone up.
I took a look at the wheels @kilroy07 sent and started with the pants. I shaped them and put them together in my hand and thought they looked way too wide for the wheels as well as scale for the fuselage when compared to real life pictures. so I thinned them down by cutting the top plate by 5mm on the front and 3 mm in the rear along the length not on the ends. Temp put the pieces together and that looked a bit better. Once they were glued I did the inner edges using the bead of glue and squeegeed it all out. I wanted to spread it as thin for weight but also to seal as much of the inside against wet grass and general damp flying conditions here. Finally I beveled the edges to give them a less square look and white gorilla wood glued all the exposed edges and foam in prep for priming later today.
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Once that was done and my first cup of coffee finished I had plenty of energy and motivation to continue. The next step was to make the back side mount and I had just enough of that piece of welding wire to use instead of BBQ skewer. There was a ton of bending and test fitting to get everything aligned and I forgot to grab the in between shots of the making of the fairings and gluing that all together. This is what that ended up looking like.
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Finally it was time to see what it looked like all together. I still have not glued the pants to the fairings yet as the wheels have to be installed before that can be glued together. I'm still on the fence about adding in bushings to keep the wheels centered so they don't bind or over time rub thru. At least I think I have them reasonably even so the full aircraft doesn't have a Detroit lean on the runway.
Also you can see the greenish base coat I was talking about earlier.
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PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
Pretty much a full days project to get everything lined up and shaped to fit. They are all in primer now and I have started finish coating the fuselage. My paint shade is changing coming out of the same container. Guess I didnt mix it as good as I should. Right now the Fuse is tri toned haha. Going to mix a bigger batch tomorrow and mix it a lot more. Figured stirring in the tiny mix jar and then shaking it like crazy would be enough but it seems I need to make even more effort.
mayan
Legendary member
LolYea, I thought about that right after I hit the post button... If there's ANYONE I should be calling out it's him!
<Edit> Maybe he's still out in the bean field...
mayan
Legendary member
PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
Well got more painting done this morning. I still need to remix the cream as right now it looks like one of those Christmas mints pillow candies then a light cream. Gonna have to take a break from this and hide all my paints and clean up my work bench and kitchen. We have the annual fire inspections coming on Monday and they frown on things blocking or slowing a path to an exit which is where my work bench is. Its not blocked by any means but it is a tad crowded with RC stuff.
Anyway I peeled the tape to reveal the wind screen in its glory and to make sure the paint isn't building up too much to peel off with the tape. Seems like I have decently clean lines and had minimal paint get under the tape so that was a plus. I was half scared it would be over sprayed insanely on the inside.
So here is where I left it until I can clear the bench and make enough room to lay the wing flat to build that next. Oh yeah.. and everyone worrying over paint adding weight.. spray bombs will if you are ham fisted and do thick coverage. With an air brush the bare fuselage went from 168g to 186ish? with a spray bomb prime job and all the wood glue I use on the edges to seal the foam before peeling tape off wind screen. I didn't weigh it again this morning so tacked on a gram or so as a guess.
You can see on the nose the color I was going for but as you go further back down the fuselage you see it get more "Minty fresh" The flat top part is base coat only as that will go black to match the stipe on top of the wing back to the tail.
Anyway I peeled the tape to reveal the wind screen in its glory and to make sure the paint isn't building up too much to peel off with the tape. Seems like I have decently clean lines and had minimal paint get under the tape so that was a plus. I was half scared it would be over sprayed insanely on the inside.
So here is where I left it until I can clear the bench and make enough room to lay the wing flat to build that next. Oh yeah.. and everyone worrying over paint adding weight.. spray bombs will if you are ham fisted and do thick coverage. With an air brush the bare fuselage went from 168g to 186ish? with a spray bomb prime job and all the wood glue I use on the edges to seal the foam before peeling tape off wind screen. I didn't weigh it again this morning so tacked on a gram or so as a guess.
You can see on the nose the color I was going for but as you go further back down the fuselage you see it get more "Minty fresh" The flat top part is base coat only as that will go black to match the stipe on top of the wing back to the tail.
mayan
Legendary member
Wow man! I want to hang it on my wall
! And the windshield I am loving it! Amazing work on that!
PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
@mayan Between the design and the kit cutting this is just as easy as any FT made kit. I would seriously see if you might be able to strike a deal and market it thru FT once we get all the little bugs worked out. All the time I have on this is my own OCD and need to fiddle with things to make them look good. (which still irks me after wrinkling it with the primer).
I did notice when looking down the length from the front that the tail seems a little small compared to other foamies I have built. That could be some of the issue with what you see when flying it. Then again it could be in my head as I was up pretty close to take the pictures.
Anyways need to do some major cleaning and such for the inspections Monday so may not have much more progress til after that other them maybe another coat of a more cream looking paint to even it all out.
I did notice when looking down the length from the front that the tail seems a little small compared to other foamies I have built. That could be some of the issue with what you see when flying it. Then again it could be in my head as I was up pretty close to take the pictures.
Anyways need to do some major cleaning and such for the inspections Monday so may not have much more progress til after that other them maybe another coat of a more cream looking paint to even it all out.
mayan
Legendary member
Btw @The Hangar said he’d take to flite fest but he got so caught up in making mentor that he forgot about it 🤣😂🤣😂🤣. Rats thread come back?!?
PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
That I can only take a guess at since I have yet to fly a full pack on ANYTHING that isn't in a sim
I would say make a slightly larger elevator and rudder as that seems to be the common issue with foam planes flying poorly after initial design. Seems the transfer from full scale does not actually scale reality.I wasn't involved with the rats thread. I think that was more the new (back then) kids having fun. Most of them bandwagoned with @SquirrelTail when he decided to take a break / leave.
Most those guys weren’t part of that thread, the most active guys on the rat thread left before squirreltail did.
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Looking really great 'Borg!!! FYI, one of the guys at the field recently acquired a large gas/balsa version of this plane. I'll post pics if he ever gets it to the field.
PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
More progress today. Built the wing, installed the servos..... even managed to screw up the flaps so they work JUST like the ailerons. No big deal I have a 4 channel receiver and a 10 channel one so guess which one is going into this build haha. The nice thing is I will be able to set the ailerons up with offset throws to help with stalls soon as I learn the correct way to do it... All that in a later post I am sure.
Anyways I primed it just after lunch and let it sit til after dinner before I broke out the air brush and used up the black paint I had mixed for the lading gear to get an idea on what pattern I wanted to paint it. So enough talk here is what I did today.
To start a little bit of teaching / tootin my own horn here.. This is how I do rounding of foam. I tried the table edge thing and I am way to spastic to NOT put at least one crinkle or ridge in the foam from looking down at such an angle I occasionally twitch from pressure on my neck issues. I place the foam flat on a soft flat surface. In my current set up that happens to be an $8 yoga mat cut in half and placed on the folding table work bench I have. In the direction I want the bend to go I put the rolling pin down on the foam and then take a roughly 4in x 10in piece of balsa ply from a box of tangerines I got at some point (HINT FREE Balsa ply firewalls and control horns with every box) and put that flat under where I want the bend to be.
Putting pressure on the rolling pin to hold the foam down with one hand I use the other hand to lift up on the foam and press that onto the rolling pin. Once there is a curve I move the rolling pin a bit and repeat until I get the shape I need. 99% of the time you get no wrinkles, creases, or finger print indentations in your foam but have a perfect arch to suit your needs. Works great for round fuselages too. You just over bend the foam and make sure you put extra pressure with the plywood at the ends where you will be gluing so you have no flat spots from an unbent end.
And here is the result of this particular bend.
Once I shape the foam and add any inner parts before gluing I will take an emery board and make all the joints mate best I can. Most of the time it is really easy to get really great joins. Same thing for control surface bevels. I do the razor blade cut to get close then shape to nice even and flat surface. I also go around the ENTIRE part with a sanding block and finish with the emery board to make it perfectly flat.
Once all that was done I mounted the servos after centering and testing for smoothness. I came across one that didn't want to keep a good connection so I changed that out before mounting and will see what that issue is and use it in the fuselage where I have easier access incase further problems happen.
Here is my mistake in plain sight. I should have caught it right when I took this picture.... SOOOO dumb. At least I added a few dabs of hot glue to hold the wires secure so if the wings get knocked off they don't stretch the wires or have less chance separating the extensions in a crash. Like them tiny holes to get the wires thru. No large chunk taken out of the structural part of the foam to weaken it. (at least that's how it is supposed to work in my head)
I took two pieces of dowel and stuck them in the holes where the wires came thru and wrapped the wires up against them in aluminum foild to make a handle and to protect the wires from paint n such.
EDIT Oh yeah.. almost forgot BEFORE priming I brush white Gorilla Wood Glue on all the uncovered edges as well as any exposed foam where the paper has been peeled of on the outside. This allows you to paint without melting foam. ALSO if you coat your exposed hot glue you can get paint to cover that nicely too.
Here is the completed wing from the top.
As you see these were taken just before priming. I didn't get any shots of the wing in just primer but here is what my pattern idea is so far. Seeing the black against the reddish primer makes me wonder if I want to change up and go like a Brandywine and Black instead of the Cream and Black I have started.
Cue the windoze Tada sound and...
I couldn't get low enough to show it but the wheel hubs have been painted the same red as is on the cowl.
So there she is as she sits this evening. tomorrows agenda is to better mix the Cream to match the nose and repaint the fuselage and get the wing in Cream as well. Once that gets done I think I will add balsa spars along the top inside where the wing sits over the side windows and actually cut out side windows and do the clear plastic container trick. then finally it gets radio gear, servos, control horns and then its off to program the radio for it all. That will have a video I think once I work out what I want and or need to do.
Anyways I primed it just after lunch and let it sit til after dinner before I broke out the air brush and used up the black paint I had mixed for the lading gear to get an idea on what pattern I wanted to paint it. So enough talk here is what I did today.
To start a little bit of teaching / tootin my own horn here.. This is how I do rounding of foam. I tried the table edge thing and I am way to spastic to NOT put at least one crinkle or ridge in the foam from looking down at such an angle I occasionally twitch from pressure on my neck issues. I place the foam flat on a soft flat surface. In my current set up that happens to be an $8 yoga mat cut in half and placed on the folding table work bench I have. In the direction I want the bend to go I put the rolling pin down on the foam and then take a roughly 4in x 10in piece of balsa ply from a box of tangerines I got at some point (HINT FREE Balsa ply firewalls and control horns with every box) and put that flat under where I want the bend to be.
Putting pressure on the rolling pin to hold the foam down with one hand I use the other hand to lift up on the foam and press that onto the rolling pin. Once there is a curve I move the rolling pin a bit and repeat until I get the shape I need. 99% of the time you get no wrinkles, creases, or finger print indentations in your foam but have a perfect arch to suit your needs. Works great for round fuselages too. You just over bend the foam and make sure you put extra pressure with the plywood at the ends where you will be gluing so you have no flat spots from an unbent end.
And here is the result of this particular bend.
Once I shape the foam and add any inner parts before gluing I will take an emery board and make all the joints mate best I can. Most of the time it is really easy to get really great joins. Same thing for control surface bevels. I do the razor blade cut to get close then shape to nice even and flat surface. I also go around the ENTIRE part with a sanding block and finish with the emery board to make it perfectly flat.
Once all that was done I mounted the servos after centering and testing for smoothness. I came across one that didn't want to keep a good connection so I changed that out before mounting and will see what that issue is and use it in the fuselage where I have easier access incase further problems happen.
Here is my mistake in plain sight. I should have caught it right when I took this picture.... SOOOO dumb. At least I added a few dabs of hot glue to hold the wires secure so if the wings get knocked off they don't stretch the wires or have less chance separating the extensions in a crash. Like them tiny holes to get the wires thru. No large chunk taken out of the structural part of the foam to weaken it. (at least that's how it is supposed to work in my head)
I took two pieces of dowel and stuck them in the holes where the wires came thru and wrapped the wires up against them in aluminum foild to make a handle and to protect the wires from paint n such.
EDIT Oh yeah.. almost forgot BEFORE priming I brush white Gorilla Wood Glue on all the uncovered edges as well as any exposed foam where the paper has been peeled of on the outside. This allows you to paint without melting foam. ALSO if you coat your exposed hot glue you can get paint to cover that nicely too.
Here is the completed wing from the top.
As you see these were taken just before priming. I didn't get any shots of the wing in just primer but here is what my pattern idea is so far. Seeing the black against the reddish primer makes me wonder if I want to change up and go like a Brandywine and Black instead of the Cream and Black I have started.
Cue the windoze Tada sound and...
I couldn't get low enough to show it but the wheel hubs have been painted the same red as is on the cowl.
So there she is as she sits this evening. tomorrows agenda is to better mix the Cream to match the nose and repaint the fuselage and get the wing in Cream as well. Once that gets done I think I will add balsa spars along the top inside where the wing sits over the side windows and actually cut out side windows and do the clear plastic container trick. then finally it gets radio gear, servos, control horns and then its off to program the radio for it all. That will have a video I think once I work out what I want and or need to do.
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That's beautiful!
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