Hai-Lee
Old and Bold RC PILOT
If you fly a lot and use many FB aircraft you will, (without doubt), at sometime find that a skewer hole has been torn or enlarged in one of your favorites and you do not want to hack and glue some short term solution. You may also not wish to glue them in.
There are those who use card reinforcements for the skewers and they work well but in a crash they too can be damaged.
As is usual in finding solutions I gave up on a complex engineered solution and settled for the card reinforcement method and let the issue fade from my mind. However sometimes solutions do present themselves long after a problem has been solved and this is such a case.
Whilst walking through my local Autoparts store I glanced over and saw a blister pack of Screw grommets. These are the plastic parts used to hold plastic covers in position under car fenders, (Mudguards in Aus). They are pushed through a square hole in the metal and the plastic cover is then screwed onto the grommet.
Junk yards in the US must trash millions of them each year. So there is definitely a cheap and plentiful supply available.
The square mounting hole required by the grommet is cut around where the skewer hole once was and the grommet is fitted, (glued if required). The force distribution is spread over a large area and also to the inside on a large area.
When in position just fit the skewer through as normal. So far they have been indestructible and whereas I used to rip the skewer hole and even the card I now just cut new skewers. So far only one has ripped out but then so did the whole rear section of the planes fuselage:black_eyed:
There are those who use card reinforcements for the skewers and they work well but in a crash they too can be damaged.
As is usual in finding solutions I gave up on a complex engineered solution and settled for the card reinforcement method and let the issue fade from my mind. However sometimes solutions do present themselves long after a problem has been solved and this is such a case.
Whilst walking through my local Autoparts store I glanced over and saw a blister pack of Screw grommets. These are the plastic parts used to hold plastic covers in position under car fenders, (Mudguards in Aus). They are pushed through a square hole in the metal and the plastic cover is then screwed onto the grommet.
Junk yards in the US must trash millions of them each year. So there is definitely a cheap and plentiful supply available.
The square mounting hole required by the grommet is cut around where the skewer hole once was and the grommet is fitted, (glued if required). The force distribution is spread over a large area and also to the inside on a large area.
When in position just fit the skewer through as normal. So far they have been indestructible and whereas I used to rip the skewer hole and even the card I now just cut new skewers. So far only one has ripped out but then so did the whole rear section of the planes fuselage:black_eyed:
- Cutting the stuff is pretty easy too, score the top side, then bend over a sharp edge toward the score. Brakes clean. You can cut hundreds in a few minutes. Score in both directions, drill the center of each square, break along the scores. I have a box full of them.
