Spacewalker balsa build: HobbyKing Sponsored

[willsonman]

Not from me! LOL.

Graham: Excellent work on your first flight of this one. I too have had thoughts about battery ventilation so good to know before I do my final work on the front end.

I DID make progress last night. I got the other wing sheeted and both wings are ready for their final touches. Leading edge needs to be sanded to shape and the aileron bay covers need their treatment as well. Everything is nice and straight and I am still pleased with how this build is turning out.

 

[Joker 53150]

Ah, my bad. That's what happens when I read updates on my phone at midnight when I'm too tired to think straight!

 

[Graham1102]

Thought I would post a photo of my Spacewalker

 

[willsonman]

That looks fantastic! Thanks for sharing! I've got the leading edges sanded to shape now and had a lot of fun getting all the balsa boogers out of my nose

With September over I'm looking to really get back on this build. Life has just really been sucking it out of me. To blow off steam I've been skipping out to the field here and there for a quick release but I should be doing it here more often. October usually brings erratic winds and rains as fall sets in and build season comes in hard. I'd like to have this one ready for my Club's "Turkey Fry and Fly" on 04NOV but I'm not sure I can get everything done that I want to do in that time frame. If I get it done before Thanksgiving I will be very happy. There is not a whole lot more building to do at this stage... just the tail planes and lighting then I can start covering.

 

[willsonman]

removed double post due to database error.

 

[willsonman]

Ok, so progress this weekend was very good.

We start off with the aileron servo bays. Originally they are not intended to be serviceable. Silly, really considering you essentially have all the structure you need to do it. The covers (A8, on the left in the below picture) are to be glued onto the structure in the wing and then permanently install the servo... We are not going to do this. There is about 1/16" of a lip between the ply plate for the mount in the wing and the bottom of the airfoil. I started off by creating a piece of balsa 6x9.3mm to fill the void and dry fit it. I traced the preimiter of the hole onto the balsa so that I could remove a portion in the middle for the cover.


Here, you can see the portion removed. A little sanding of the cover made this a looser fit to allow room for the covering film to be applied later.


The extra balsa piece was installed in the bay on the bottom side to fill the gap. As you can see, the corners protrude out, making perfect surfaces for holes to be drilled and screws used to secure the plate.


Here, with the plate in place, you can see how the more flush finish will be. The servo will be secured to the plate and the plate secured to the mount via the screws at the corners.


You can see here the amount of slight gap that remains between the edge of the ribs and the new balsa piece. it is about 1mm but I'm not about to quibble about that. It was either 1/16 or 3/16 balsa plus sanding work... who wants to do that for 1mm?! The goal here was to allow the servos to be serviceable without needing to remove covering film from the wing... mission accomplished.

 

[willsonman]

Moving along... we are joining the wings. Smear epoxy all over the spar on one half and insert into one wing. Make sure you are giving dihedral... not anhedral. I use a q-tip (cotton swap) to smear additional epoxy into the corners once inserted. Apply more epoxy to the other half of the spar and insert the other half of the wing and smear around more. I used tape to secure the aft end of the root and my clamps on the insertion tab at the tip. The instructions suggest using fiberglass and epoxy along the seam of the root but non is provided. You can pick this stuff up for a reasonable price. Need to look at my stash of glass cloth and see what I have but it is good insurance and I recommend going this extra step for a longer-lasting model. I also removed and finished the other aileron.


Spent a couple of hours getting the tail planes all put together. Nothing out of the ordinary here. All the parts are clearly labeled and fit well. One extra step I took was to cut in a slight recess into the elevators for the U-wire to sit into. Sanded the wire to rough it up and used epoxy to secure it. I sanded everything flush, beveled, the leading edges of the control surfaces, and rounded the leading edges. Lots of balsa dust made. Please also note that again, I ran to the issue of the sandwiched ply-balsa pieces at the base of the V-stab were too thick to insert into the hole of the H-stab and fuselage. Removal of some ply layers made quick work of it for a perfect fit. Also, the inserts for the stabs are PLY... these are not very stout surfaces, probably more than they need to be. Hopefully it is not too much of a weight penalty to the tail.


Additionally I started looking at how I want to do my navigation lights. Should be fairly simple and the wires are long enough, though it will make for one extra step when fitting the wing at the field. No big deal for the fun aspect of it.

 

[JimCR120]

There is a word that comes to mind when I see things built with wood where one can see the grain lines and the craftmanship as I do here, elegant.

Keep up the excellent work and detailed posts.

 

[willsonman]

That is very kind. Thank you!

 

[willsonman]

Moving along here...

I drilled out a hole in the tip of the V-stab to accept a red LED. I had to cut the wire to slide it through the stab but that was minor. A brief trip to the soldering station and we are done.


The wing fitting took a bit of sanding to get right but this is normal for a build. Just go light-handed until it fits right.


Front view showing proper alignment.


I slipped ahead and wanted to finish the wing mounting. There are balsa pieces that go over the mount that meet up with the wing. The T-nuts on the back side are much easier to install if you put them in place and tighten them to properly seat the nut in the ply. If you have balsa there you end up crushing it so I did that before I glued in the balsa. A few drops of CA to keep them in the wood and we are set.


And the balsa blocks in place, sanded a bit to conform to the wing shape.

 

[willsonman]

The next order was to start getting hardware into the fuselage. The servos were a perfect fit both in the mounting plate as well as inside the battery hatch.


Next, the push rod sleeves go in. I pushed them through the holes starting in the servo side, not the tail side. It seemed easier that way. I trimmed the excess away giving myself more to trim later when the push rods are installed.


I leave the tip of my push rod sleeves protruding like this for a reason you will see below. I added some CA to secure it in this position and added a drop to each location inside the fuselage to make sure it is fully secure.


Once dry, I use a razor to trim the sleeve flush with the fuselage. It gives a cleaner look in the finishing area as well as make covering the aircraft much easier later.


With the push rod installed.


I did get the motor mount bolted to the fuselage but forgot to grab a picture. There are no instructions in the manual on how to do this. I used some of my stash of small T-nuts and screws, placing the T-nuts inside the mount and screwing the mount on from the inside of the fuselage. Since this area will also have the battery there, I did not want the tips of screws protruding in as a slip in the battery could puncture a cell... never a good thing. The top screw heads were binding a little with the battery hatch so I had to trim off a little wood for a perfect fit.

 

[willsonman]

I managed to get all of the electronics installed in the wings so lets cover that, including the mods I did for the lights.

I first inserted balsa scrap from the kit. sand and glue in place, very simple.


I then used my sanding block to shape the balsa to the contour of the wing tip. these will provide surface area for the covering to adhere to as well as provide support for the lights to secure to.


Here is the notch in the wing tip area that I've mentioned before. Completely unneeded for construction and gives a weak spot at the tip for breaking.


Insert a piece of scrap balsa and add CA. Trim and sand and we are good to go.


Lights are installed by drilling a hole in the balsa. I just use a drill bit in my fingers, gently guiding and feeling my way to get the hole done. A drill will wobble all over and make a holy mess of this so I go gently, a little at a time. The LEDs pop in through the rear and a touch of CA secures them in place.


LEDs are lit and working.


The servos were installed by first putting on the control horns and placing the servo where I needed it on the cover. I traced around the servo with a pencil so I had reference lines to glue on the hard balsa blocks. Using medium CA, I secured the blocks to the cover, placed the servo in, and secured with the screws included with the servos.


Finally, the cover, with the servo installed, is placed in the bay and holes are pre-drilled for the 4 screws to secure the cover and servo in place. If anything goes, wrong, I can remove these screws and service/replace the servo.

 

[Joker 53150]

That lighting kit looks pretty interesting, can you do a little more info about it and your impressions on it so far?

 

[AkimboGlueGuns]

Nice lights. Does the strobe blink at all or are they both on solid? Also, are you trimming around the covering at the wingtip , or are you going to have the lights shine through?

 

[willsonman]

Sure!

This is the set I'm using:
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/aircraft-navigation-lamp-set.html

The wire length is 80cm, which is quite long but simple enough to extend. The case seems well-built and firmly holds the connectors. I've not played around with the programming yet. but the manual on the download section does not go into how you do that. I'll figure it out when I get there. The LEDs are quite bright so daytime visibility should be fairly good... not that it really matters. I'll be using a 6-ch Rx so this should go into one channel to control it all. Ch-5 will be for the bomb drop.

I'll cover it more as I integrate it more.

Akimbo: I'll trim around the lights when I cover. The lights can be programmed to do different patterns. See the link and download section to review it.

 

[nhk750]

Looking good and a decent kit by HK.

 

[Joker 53150]

Very nice, I haven't seen those before, and they'd be a nice addition to a 1/6 scale Stinson Reliant that is in line for a re-build. The price seems ridiculously cheap compared to other nav lights on the market. They probably aren't as bright, but for the price they'll be hard to beat if they work well!

 

[willsonman]

Yeah, they are not blinding but they are not as dim as most ARFs that come with them. As I get into the programming it might be fun to throw a switch and turn on landing lights. If you had retractable landing lights in your Stinson (are you surprised that the scale guy knows this?), this would be a good feature to have for that as well.

 

[Joker 53150]

It's been a while since I saw the full-scale version, but I recall seeing somebody model a retractable landing light in an RC version which was a pretty crazy feature. Seems like some full-scale planes have it and some don't. It's a detail that would be nice to add, for sure!

 

[Joker 53150]

I'm going to give those LED nav lights a shot, along with a pair of different single light LEDs for the landing lights on the 1/6 scale Stinson Reliant. I'm guessing the nav lights won't really be visible during the day, but I think the lights I picked for the landing lights will be bright enough. And yes, the retractable landing lights are at least tentatively planned for it.