Snowball - PROJECT

[fliteadmin]

The Snowball was the brain child of RCGroups.com fourm member Lee. He smashed together two ideas from fellow scratch builders goldguy and Larry3215 to create the "ATV" of foam board planes.

What separates the Snowball from a Nutball are the raised motor and the pontoons on the belly.

Snow does not mix well with foam board, as everyone knows, so we built these big guys out of 1/2 inch insulation foam.

It worked well with repelling water, but the material was too brittle in the cold. To see their untimely death check out the episode.

So now we were back to square one, or circle one in this case. How can you make a Snowball that loves snow?
Minwax is always a good choice but it's messy and we wanted to find some better solutions. So here are 3 of our favorites.

1. Camp Dry
This is simply a silicone spray ment to help repel water off of boots and camping tents. The easiest way to apply it to your plane is to assemble it first (glue and stickers will not stick if you spray before you build!), tape off any electronics, and give it a good coat. Keep in mind this stuff is NOT water PROOF, it is water RESISTANT. Even that being said, this technique works very well.

2. Colored Packing Tape
You can pick this stuff up all over the place. We got ours from LazerToyz.com.

This method was the cheapest but most time consuming. The cool part is getting to design your own color scheme! Here, Alex went with "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow(ball)". Just make sure that if you are gluing two surfaces together, cut the tape away because the glue won't adhere too well to the shiny surface.

3. Laminate Contact Paper
This is another one that you can get at almost any craft store. This was more expensive than the tape method but looks much cleaner.

The rolls come in a variety of sizes. Same thing as the tape method if you are gluing two surfaces together. Remove the laminate from whatever surfaces you want to glue together.

This is the finished contact paper version. Shout out to Nolan, Blake, Randy, and Jedd from plane-awesome.com for sending us some stickers! Check out their reviews and send 'em some love!

Once we had our planes armored up, we took them for a spin!

We were happy with all these techniques to help our planes combat the harsh season. Use which ever method is more convenient for your project.

If you want to turn your Nutball into a Snowball (or maybe add some floats to your FT-Flyer) we will have a conversion kit and plans available on Wednesday, February 19th!

Thanks again to Lee, goldguy, and Larry3215 for the inspiration! And thanks to you for watching!

LINKS
- Swappable 3 Pack (for a Nutball speed build kit)
- Nutball Scratch Build (for free Nutball plans)
- Lee's Snowball Thread
- goldguy's Nutball Thread
- Larry3251's Capricorn Thread
- Colored Packing Tape
- plane-awesome.com

 

[Bordello Bob]

Min-Wax


Min-Wax comes in a spray can also. I sprayed it real heavy on my FT Flyer wing to see how it worked. I left it on for about 10 minutes and then had to wipe it off for it to dry quicker. No problems at all. The wrinkles in the wing are from a landing.

 

[Freaky_1]

Nice episode.
Nice toastakin too!

Frank

 

[sailorJohn]

Moisture proofing!

An alternative covering is Contact shelving paper ,available from walmart (18" wide by--lots) or Lowes (20" wide by 30') $7 to $10. Takes krylon paint very well and gives a high gloss finish. Takes a bit of practice to put it down cleanly , but once you get the hang of it you can cover a board in 5 minutes. Clear (mate finish) seems lighter than the white but only comes in 18" width (wallyworld). I tried to post a video but it sucked. It is vinyl so you have to remove the gluing areas. After building then glue the edges as shown taking care not to get the vinyl too hot.

 

[rcspaceflight]

Majority of other foam boards are water resistant already. Even though they cost more and are heavier, it's easier to just work with that material as is than to add something to Dollar Tree foam board.

 

[Blackhawk]

That spray on Minwax looks amazing where can you get it. Great episode Flite Test. This nutball looks so versatile can't wait to make one.

 

[Rbeedude]

Great job guys. Some videos with more scratch building tips would be
Sweet
Because I am making my own plane. Once again guys great job.

A video on a scratch builds cargo plane would be cool.

 

[Ron B]

I have to check out the floats for the flyer as I break way to many props.

 

[ofiesens2]

Majority of other foam boards are water resistant already. Even though they cost more and are heavier, it's easier to just work with that material as is than to add something to Dollar Tree foam board.

What type of water resistant foam do you use/ recommend?

 

[rcspaceflight]

What type of water resistant foam do you use/ recommend?

I used to use Flip Side foam board. It's sold at a local mom and pop craft store. I've also used the stuff that Hobby Lobby sells. Both are very similar to each other and the Elmer's brand that is sold at Target and Wal-Mart. Dollar Tree is really the odd ball of foam boards sold in America.

I don't think any of the other foam boards that I mentioned are really different from each other. They're more like $5 a sheet, not $1. But depending on what you're building, it's still a cheap airframe.

Because it's heavier you have to be more conscientious of the airframe design and you have to over power the plane and fly faster.

I think I may build a noob tube type of plane out of Flip Side just as a beater plane. A simple airframe like that is more likely to handle the extra weight of the material. Currently I've been using Dollar Tree. But it would be nice to have something water resistant without having to go thru a process of making it water resistant.

 

[dlaxer74]

After you minwax the snowball is it safe to fly it on water?

 

[Craftydan]

you might want to ensure the floats, ESC, and RX are sealed to keep water out . . . but yeah.

 

[sailorJohn]

Noob tube requires stripping the paper from the foam board, and that would be hard to do with the heavier boards cause the paper is thicker and water won't help. The heavier board's paper made a stiffer hinge line.

 

[brettp2004]

Has anyone tried flying the snowball on water yet? I'd love to have a cheap beater plane to take to lake this summer and this looks like it would be perfect. I might have to use the colored packaging tape method to make sure it's completely waterproof. I'd also have to find someway of keeping the ESC dry but still able to cool. Any suggestions or ideas?