BATTLEAXE
Legendary member
Thanks to Grifflyer I had the opportunity to build the Shrubsmacker. I found it to be a simple build, tho I wouldn't suggest it as your first build, given there is no build video for it. Once you have a few under your belt it was easy to put together. And it leaves a lot of room for mods as you see fit. I did quite a few mods just to fit my electronics set up and get CG right, then there were the aesthetics as well. Check it out
Even tho this was modelled after the much larger Storch, I was looking at it as more of a common bush plane. The nose originally tapers to resemble the Storch but I tried to give it mot of a Dehavilland Beaver appeal. I also wanted to try doing some forming of the DTFB instead of just the folding so I added some nose mods. The black sections in the nose I measured the base of the triangles to match the span of the surfaces they were to attach to and pulled the apex to desired length, 3" on the top of the hood and 5" on the sides. Then I pulled the paper off the backside and sanded the edges to a slight bevel to create a formed curve on the back, then on the edge of the work table I formed the pieces to transfer the curve to the front face of the piece leaving the backside flat, then glued into place. In turn this made a rounded nose front instead of being a hard square, creating the effect I was looking to achieve. The red nose front was a simple 1" section which was formed on the table to open accentuate the round nose of a Beaver. Now... I think I was on the right track for what I was looking for but using the different colors of DTFB on this mod made the plane look more like a clown car instead of the Beaver but live and learn. Just lookin to see if I can fly it lol!
I did set this up as a 4 channel as I will use it to help me train for a 4 channel. On the plans there was no set up for any dihedral but I find that it is something that helps me fly for now. I've tried a couple of planes without dihedral and I just don't have the experience to handle none. So I built in the dihedral as you will notice and it worked out great. The large Storch has it and so does the Beaver so there were a lot of reasons for me to add it. As far as the wing goes as well I was at bit of a head scratching moment as far as the ailerons go... they extend the full wing span as opposed to being on the outside half of the wing. Now I could have cut them to just be on the outside half of the wing to keep the roll response more docile and even leaving room for flaps later if I wanted. In doing this I would have had to move the servos further out as well. At the time I was lookin at having to use servo extensions for the wires to reach the center of the wing for the Rx connection. Once I hooked up the Y harness tho I realized I could have gotten away with it because now I have way to much wire in the fuse for the ailerons to hook up. Another learning experience for this guy. Not if, but when I smash the hell out of this wing I will go with my original plan and keep the ailerons to the outer wing half and move the servos out as well. In the meantime I am going to dial down the throws and expo on them to keep them on the milder side for my experience level and beef them up as I need.
Another thing I was Stumbling with was the CG. Most of the build I do end up being naturally nose heavy, a little weight added to the tail section and problem fixed. Not this one. Even tho the CG marks on the plans are placed further back on the wing then I am used to seeing it still came out tail heavy. To tell you the truth I was kinda excited to see how well the 3s 850 mah was going to sit nicely inside the fuse right between the doublers behind the power pod. Tail heavy... huh?! After some strategic moves of the electronics I still had it on the tail heavy side. More head scratching. moved the ESC taped directly underneath the power pod and move the battery as clos to the back of the pod, even tried a vertical placement of the battery to concentrate the weight to the front but it totally blocked off any room for the ESC to pass the throttle wire past the battery. And to get all the electronics in or out turned out to be quite the operation, even just to change a battery was a hassle. And the PP with the ESC taped to the bottom couldn't slide in and out without hitting the bottom plate of the nose. I finally had to do some more surgery STAT. So out came the scalpel and this is what I ended up doing:
Since this has been a proven design to fit the battery under the PP to help balance the plane, this is what I went with. In the pic I haven't moved the ESC yet but it is coming to that. Gonna be a lot easier to change the battery too. I found that the CG will also depend on how you mount the elastic bands to hold the wing down, which worked out to my advantage. if I hooked the bands onto the back skewer and pulled them to the front, the wing would sit more forward on the fuse. If I hooked them on the front skewer and pulled them to the back the wing would sit further back by a half inch. Helped out with moving the CG back to give me a little more nose room to play with.
Over all said and done it was a pleasure to build and wasn't just your run of the mill smash up. I learned a lot from it on the building side, helped to develop more foresight for the issues I had. And inspired me to take a previous design and make some changes to it to make it my own... soon to come to the forum. But that's another post. one thing I was reall impressed with on this Shrubsmacker is how strong the fuse is. as I was building, doing the mods and hacking away at it, the fuse doesn't twist, bend or warp anywhere. As long as you make sure all your joints are 90 degrees this is one solid beast of a mini. Can't wait to fly it. Thx Grifflyer and I look forward to more of your creations
Even tho this was modelled after the much larger Storch, I was looking at it as more of a common bush plane. The nose originally tapers to resemble the Storch but I tried to give it mot of a Dehavilland Beaver appeal. I also wanted to try doing some forming of the DTFB instead of just the folding so I added some nose mods. The black sections in the nose I measured the base of the triangles to match the span of the surfaces they were to attach to and pulled the apex to desired length, 3" on the top of the hood and 5" on the sides. Then I pulled the paper off the backside and sanded the edges to a slight bevel to create a formed curve on the back, then on the edge of the work table I formed the pieces to transfer the curve to the front face of the piece leaving the backside flat, then glued into place. In turn this made a rounded nose front instead of being a hard square, creating the effect I was looking to achieve. The red nose front was a simple 1" section which was formed on the table to open accentuate the round nose of a Beaver. Now... I think I was on the right track for what I was looking for but using the different colors of DTFB on this mod made the plane look more like a clown car instead of the Beaver but live and learn. Just lookin to see if I can fly it lol!
I did set this up as a 4 channel as I will use it to help me train for a 4 channel. On the plans there was no set up for any dihedral but I find that it is something that helps me fly for now. I've tried a couple of planes without dihedral and I just don't have the experience to handle none. So I built in the dihedral as you will notice and it worked out great. The large Storch has it and so does the Beaver so there were a lot of reasons for me to add it. As far as the wing goes as well I was at bit of a head scratching moment as far as the ailerons go... they extend the full wing span as opposed to being on the outside half of the wing. Now I could have cut them to just be on the outside half of the wing to keep the roll response more docile and even leaving room for flaps later if I wanted. In doing this I would have had to move the servos further out as well. At the time I was lookin at having to use servo extensions for the wires to reach the center of the wing for the Rx connection. Once I hooked up the Y harness tho I realized I could have gotten away with it because now I have way to much wire in the fuse for the ailerons to hook up. Another learning experience for this guy. Not if, but when I smash the hell out of this wing I will go with my original plan and keep the ailerons to the outer wing half and move the servos out as well. In the meantime I am going to dial down the throws and expo on them to keep them on the milder side for my experience level and beef them up as I need.
Another thing I was Stumbling with was the CG. Most of the build I do end up being naturally nose heavy, a little weight added to the tail section and problem fixed. Not this one. Even tho the CG marks on the plans are placed further back on the wing then I am used to seeing it still came out tail heavy. To tell you the truth I was kinda excited to see how well the 3s 850 mah was going to sit nicely inside the fuse right between the doublers behind the power pod. Tail heavy... huh?! After some strategic moves of the electronics I still had it on the tail heavy side. More head scratching. moved the ESC taped directly underneath the power pod and move the battery as clos to the back of the pod, even tried a vertical placement of the battery to concentrate the weight to the front but it totally blocked off any room for the ESC to pass the throttle wire past the battery. And to get all the electronics in or out turned out to be quite the operation, even just to change a battery was a hassle. And the PP with the ESC taped to the bottom couldn't slide in and out without hitting the bottom plate of the nose. I finally had to do some more surgery STAT. So out came the scalpel and this is what I ended up doing:
Over all said and done it was a pleasure to build and wasn't just your run of the mill smash up. I learned a lot from it on the building side, helped to develop more foresight for the issues I had. And inspired me to take a previous design and make some changes to it to make it my own... soon to come to the forum. But that's another post. one thing I was reall impressed with on this Shrubsmacker is how strong the fuse is. as I was building, doing the mods and hacking away at it, the fuse doesn't twist, bend or warp anywhere. As long as you make sure all your joints are 90 degrees this is one solid beast of a mini. Can't wait to fly it. Thx Grifflyer and I look forward to more of your creations
