Willy Nillies Q-Tee Build

speedbirdted

Legendary member
Woke up to a triangular box on my porch. Only means one thing ;)

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This plane was too cute not to buy lol. A while ago I built one of the original full size ones with a Golden Bee 049 on it but at the time I was more into 3D stuff and ended up selling it off. I had aspirations to do a 200% one with a big 4-stroke for power or something, but never got around to it. Now I get to do another!

Contents of the box. Again a really nicely made kit. I ended up going with the 1/4A power pack option because I'm out of motors/controllers that will fit on it (and unknowingly by doing so I caused my shipping time to go into the 1+ month range :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:) I also got one of the 020 motor mounts and man is it cute! I might end up throwing some paint on it to look more realistic but it's fine as-is.

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Unlike my Eaglet I have no plans to do much stupid ridiculous stuff with this build. I'm going to keep it relatively standard with a couple small exceptions here and there, mostly for aesthetics. And the landing gear. I have a total of one ridiculous idea in mind, and it's the landing gear... you'll see ;)

I started construction just a little bit too. I didn't have much time today before I went to work but I got all the fuselage bits cut out and dry fitted. I think this is how it's supposed to go together? The turtle deck and stringers I'll figure out later.

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Only issue here was the central plate doesn't quite line up with the firewall. I hate to even call this a problem since it's so minor, but if you tried to force the firewall in without sanding about 1/32 back on the central plate it might do some bad things to the fuselage sides.

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And here's a question primarily aimed at Doug: How does this piece fit in? It seems like trying to fit it in flush with the fuselage sides causes there to be too much of a gap at the rear edge of the fuselage, and trying to bend them together makes the contour of the fuselage just look kind of weird. It also seems a little too tall, like if I put the horizontal stabilizer on it would stick out above it.

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Willy Nillies

Elite member
The most aft stringer mount is oversize on purpose. #1 reason is for strength during assembly. center it up using the stringers as a guide, then glue in place. There should be an equal amount of overhang on each side. Sand to shape, only takes a few swipes. 2nd reason is there is a variance in density of each balsa sheet and the amount of bend of the aft fuselage varies enough that oversize was best option.

Hope that makes sense.!?

Be sure to assemble the cabanes BEFORE you install to fuselage! There are full size pattern download available on our website.

Have fun and God bless,
Doug and Becky
WillyNillies.com
 

speedbirdted

Legendary member
Thanks! That worked perfectly. I had thought maybe that had something to do with it but I didn't want to go subtracting large amounts of wood from kit pieces not knowing it was the intended method.

Fuselage construction is proceeding very smoothly. Only part I don't really have on yet is the turtle deck, but I think mounting the ESC is kind of important before I add that. Here I start deviating from the kit and doing my own thing even if it's pretty minor. I don't have anything against the included tailskid but I felt I could do something better that went well with my idea for main gear which you'll see in a bit.

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I actually made this out of some of the excess pushrod wire I had left over. I found it's more springy than traditional music wire. I epoxied it onto the balsa and then attached that to the tail in a little groove I made with medium CA. Looks pretty spiffy!

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I also built a wing. Specifically, two of them. I think I won't bother with the shear webbing, as with the kind of flying this plane is made for I doubt it needs it. And Doug, if you wouldn't mind me asking more questions, where do the triangular gussets (I think they're gussets?) go? I would guess corner between the outermost rib and leading/trailing edges, but perhaps something else is the case...

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Willy Nillies

Elite member
Ted,

The triangle gussets go at the tip rib of each wing. One at the leading edge and one at the trailing edge. The add an incredible amount of strength to the tip and help prevent the covering from pulling the wingtip in when shrinking.

Neat tail skid idea!

Have fun and God bless,
Doug and Becky
WillyNillies.com
 

speedbirdted

Legendary member
No work today. Time to grind!

Wing is finished and ready to cover. This picture was taken in between applying filler and sanding most of it off to get the wing butter smooth for covering. I think I'll use the covering film to dial in some washout, if it's needed.

You can see the cabane in the background too - I built it off the plane and test fit it. I then painted it silver because I thought it looked nicer.

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The fuselage is very close to done - I mounted the ESC and put the front turtle deck on today using acetone to bend it to shape and let it dry with some rubber bands holding it. I've shaped it slightly differently than is standard and used my own wood - I think the curvature around the 020 mount looks cooler.

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I also painted the pilot. Most of my practice is on pilots that are much bigger than 1 inch tall, but I guess I did okay. Anyone have suggestions on what to name him?

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OliverW

Legendary member
No work today. Time to grind!

Wing is finished and ready to cover. This picture was taken in between applying filler and sanding most of it off to get the wing butter smooth for covering. I think I'll use the covering film to dial in some washout, if it's needed.

You can see the cabane in the background too - I built it off the plane and test fit it. I then painted it silver because I thought it looked nicer.

View attachment 172453

The fuselage is very close to done - I mounted the ESC and put the front turtle deck on today using acetone to bend it to shape and let it dry with some rubber bands holding it. I've shaped it slightly differently than is standard and used my own wood - I think the curvature around the 020 mount looks cooler.

View attachment 172454

I also painted the pilot. Most of my practice is on pilots that are much bigger than 1 inch tall, but I guess I did okay. Anyone have suggestions on what to name him?

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I dunno why, but he looks like a Fred
 

speedbirdted

Legendary member
Okay I guess the pilot is named Freddy now. Let's hope he has a longer life than most of the other brave test pilots that fly my planes :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:

I have a double shift tomorrow so I figured I'd get as much work done now as I could. Wing is 100 percent done. Surprisingly, if one is really mindful about the amount of heat you're applying, monokote works quite nicely on these! I would have used Solite like I did on my Eaglet but my supply of it was running pretty low and I didn't have the colors I wanted (and you can't buy more :cry:) It's not even as heavy as I thought it would be. I didn't add any washout, I'm not sure it's really necessary.

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Onto the fuselage: I covered the tail feathers and test fitted them. My crappy trim outlines looks okay from this far away :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO: In my defense it's not easy on something this tiny. I added some filler in the tab holes to make it look better when I cover it up and also went over the whole thing with 1000 grit sandpaper (excessive but I'm a perfectionist....) to make it literally indistinguishable from a quantum stabilized atom mirror. You can also see I sanded down the middle rear deck former so that the covering film will not touch it; whenever that happens, it becomes a hotspot for wrinkling. Also the silver cabane; I didn't paint the bottom so the glue would have something to adhere to...

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Test fitted the motor mount. Man these 020 mounts are so cool lol. I'm thinking of painting the firewall black to make it less noticeable but I don't even know if I really need to do that.

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I already had the ESC put in (I think you're supposed to do it before you put the forward deck on which is what I ended up doing) but I got around to routing the pushrods through and installing the remaining electronics. I chose to install my receiver here; I don't think it'll ever need to come back out, so it'll probably be fine. I did this to keep the servo and ESC wires all contained below where the pushrods go so there will hopefully be no potential for interference between them.

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I also had another idea. What if I kitbashed one of these into a true low wing? That'd be kinda cool...
 
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TooJung2Die

Master member
The blue and yellow look great together, contrasting primaries usually do. The stripe really gives it a finished look. Everyone says the Willy Niliies airplanes look great but the Cox motor mounts get the most attention!
 

speedbirdted

Legendary member
Little update but I decided to give Freddy some gauges to keep him company. All it is is an ASI, a compass and and altimeter but I doubt this kind of plane is really supposed to have much more than that. The fit is kind of weird because the cockpit "floor" is just sitting on the servo horns, I hadn't added the supports yet.

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Originally the entire cockpit was supposed to be removable like so but I quickly realized with the cabanes in place there would be no way to extricate Freddy so the cockpit got glued in permanently.

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