SA Edge 540

[rmflyfish]

Bob:

Shoot an Email to Bill S and see if he has a clear cowl for the Edge (Or I could swing by his shop tomorrow! ;-) I used clear cowls on both my Stella and my Groove II. I think it looks kinda cool, showing off your 'high zoot' brushless motor technology, and all I do is a nice clean 'crystal clear' scotch tape job to hold it on.

The bird looks great, wait till you fly it, his planes all have the lightest wing loading I've ever experienced. There an absolute blast to fly!.

Waiting for Spring in Colorado;
Bob P

[rmflyfish]

PS:
Highlights... I'll show you some cool places in CO if you take me fish'n in BC! What say!

BP

[Bobbydog]

Well I ended up painting the cowl white with some Krylon plastic paint. Turned out not too bad actually. I still need to think of some sort of transition from the cowl to the fuse like you said Tom. Who knows I might just leave it the way it is. I'm really surprised how fragile the cowl is, I've cracked it a few times already just handling it. I hope the screws dont pull through eventually, we'll see. Some clear cowls would look pretty cool FlyFish, I'll have to remember that for next time. If you see Bill Stevens soon tell him that hes got a new friend in Vancouver!

I stopped by the Superstore and picked up some RIT fabric dye for the canopy. They didnt have any black left in stock so I thought I'd try Royal blue and double up the dye quantity, hoping it would be so dark blue it would be almost black. Didnt turn out that way but still looks good.

I found an old coffee can to use for the dyeing process, using a cooking pot would have got me a divorce. I filled it with about 6 cups of water and two packs of dye. I also dumped about a half a cup of white vinegar in there. I heated the mixture to 125 deg F. on the stove and dropped the canopy in. I checked it every 10 secs or so to make sure there was no warping of the plastic. There was no warping at all but the canopy wasnt changing color either. It was getting late and the water was down to 115 deg so I left the canopy in the can and went to bed. I woke up and checked it and it had turned a tinge blue but barely noticable. I thought that maybe the blue didnt work as well as the black so I looked around town for some black but couldnt find any. I headed back home and thought that maybe I'd try making the solution a little hotter. I heated it up to 135 deg and dropped the canopy in. I checked it often and there was no warping but I did notice quite a bit more blue coming into the canopy. I thought if 135 was good then 140 would be better. Not a good idea. I noticed the edges of the canopy folding in and the curves starting to straighten slightly after only 10 secs at 140 deg. So I would recommend 135 deg F Max. I spent the next hour heating the mixture to 135 dropping the canopy in untill it hit 125 and then heating it up again. After an hour the canopy is a nice dark blue, I'll post a pic. I'm sure I could have got it darker, but I'm happy with the way it is now.

I decided to add some white to the canopy edges, to hide the canopy glue I'll be using. I masked the canopy off with some saran wrap and scotch tape and used the same Krylon white paint as the cowling. I tried painting the inside first but white didnt show up good through the now blue canopy, so I retaped it and sprayed the outside. The blue kept leaching through the paint so it took 4 thin coats of paint to get it nice and white. I was shocked to see that the saran wrap had "mottled" the blue on the canopy. Not so bad that I have to re-dye it but still not great. I would recommend using something other than saran wrap, like maybe newspaper. The scotch tape worked good though. I think it turned out ok, adds some definition.

I've got the wings on so I can start on the tailsection tonight, but I just noticed how big the gap is from the wing root to the fuselage. I'm not sure why this happened, I dont think I made any mistakes building it. I'm thinking of securing the wings permanently and filleting the roots. What do you guys think?

The motor I have must be longer than the Hacker A30 because my motor sticks out of the cowl a little. I'm not sure if I should use the spinner, I've never used one before. Do they provide any benefit to the flight characteristics? Do you guys think that the benefit outweighs the extra weight? The one I have is the Dubro 2" and it weight almost an ounce. Pretty heavy.

Anyway, I'm going to try and get the control surfaces hinged and hooked up over the next few days. I'm pretty busy at work right now so I havent had much time lately. And its been snowing here for a week so flying is not an option for the next forseeable future anyways.

Mark, I spent the last two days near Cougar Creek out of Gold River in a 27' Grady White. Was doing some research on a project I'm working on. Didnt get any fishing in but dropped a couple of crab traps and did alright. Just thought I'd rub it in a little.

Yak at you all soon. Peace.

Bob

[Highlights]

Gold river was planned for the weekend. We usually hit it hard this month. They get a held over run of steelies that are practically untouched. I was watching the water levels. Was dropping nicely then it plumeted with the snow. We bailed for this weekend. Who knows if it will happen this year. Oh well. That your Grady?

Nice . I am working on getting a new striper for the up and coming season.

Plane looks great by the way. IMHO spinners are like wheelpants. Plane just looks unfinished without the bling. Can you reposition the motor a little aft?
weight is negligeable.

[Highlights]

	Quote: Originally Posted by rmflyfish
	PS: Highlights... I'll show you some cool places in CO if you take me fish'n in BC! What say! BP

Ah................ good to see. A fellow fisher. Yes? By the sound of your screen name, you may just know a thing or two when it comes to fishing out your way. Fishing in CO hey. HMMMMMMMMM. Maybe. Have you been out this way?

[Bobbydog]

I wish that was my boat. It was the rich Norwiegens that is finacing the project I'm working on. Easily over a hundred grand. Maybe someday I'll own one, but not tomorrow.

[Highlights]

I hear yah. As good as they are I am still more into the ergonomic lines of a new Striper. Done alot of guiding out of Hydrosports, Grady's, pusuits, tinies, but I still love those Stripers. Not the absolute best when it comes to taking on big seas but a great family fishing machine nonethe less. Two of my buddies just brought two Grady's from New York and Miami. 29 footers. Damn that is a lot of boat the beam on those things are crazy. I did some fishing down in Florida where we were running a 62 ' sport fisher. These Grady's seemed to have the same amount of space on the aft deck.

Anyways what type of work you doing up there?

Hows the plane coming along. I have a new helmet head in the works . I just finished shaping it late last night. Got one coat of prime and one of topcoat. Got up early this morning and sanded and filed for porosity and sprayed the topcoat. Vinyls will go on in a few hours once the paints kicks off. I'll post a few pics.

[Bobbydog]

Hey everyone,

Does anyone know what the thin plastic tube is for that comes in the hardware package? I've got the ailerons hinged and am ready to hook the servos up. I pulled out the music wire bag and there two thicker music wires, one thinner one, and a plastic tube that the thinner music wire fits into. The instructions dont say anything about this stuff so I'm kinda lost. I'm going to just do a double Z-bend with some carbon pushrods but am curious as to what this tube is for.

Also, the small control horns that come with the kit dont reach the hinge line, I was under the impression that you should always have the pivot point of the hinge at the hinge line. I tried a 1/2 A control horn I had kicking around but its no better. Any ideas on this? I'm assuming that everyone has just used the horns supplied and havent heard anyone complaining so it shouldnt be a problem should it? Thanks in advance.

Bob

[sun.flyer]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Bobbydog
	Hey everyone, Does anyone know what the thin plastic tube is for that comes in the hardware package? I've got the ailerons hinged and am ready to hook the servos up. I pulled out the music wire bag and there two thicker music wires, one thinner one, and a plastic tube that the thinner music wire fits into. The instructions dont say anything about this stuff so I'm kinda lost. I'm going to just do a double Z-bend with some carbon pushrods but am curious as to what this tube is for. Also, the small control horns that come with the kit dont reach the hinge line, I was under the impression that you should always have the pivot point of the hinge at the hinge line. I tried a 1/2 A control horn I had kicking around but its no better. Any ideas on this? I'm assuming that everyone has just used the horns supplied and havent heard anyone complaining so it shouldnt be a problem should it? Thanks in advance. Bob

Bob,

Is the plastic tube you are talking about yellow? If so it is suppose to slide over your wire for the tail wheel assembly. The kit comes with the wire to make your tail wheel but it must be bent to shape. For what it is worth (and Tommy 321 will disagree) I found the stock tail wheel assembly was not strong enough for this size plane. I bought a Dubro tail wheel assembly for my Edge. I had no problems using the supplied control horns, they gave plenty of throw.

Tim

[tommy321]

Tim is right... on all counts. The yellow tube is to get taped to the bottom of the rudder and act as a tailwheel pushrod keeper. I don't have any clear pictures of it handy but that's where it goes.

There's definitely something fishy about that spinner. I don't think the trouble is that the Eflite is much longer but that the Eflite has a smooth shaft that requires you to use that collet adapter. The hacker when firewall mounted like this already has a threaded shaft that comes off it so that you can bolt the spinner much closer to the motor. One thought might be to email bill some pictures of the motor mounting setup and get suggestions from him on how it might be modified to fit. I don't think the Eflite motors existed when he designed the motor box, so he might end up designing an option for eflite motors into it (since those motors are becoming so popular).

Regarding the wing, does that gap remain constant along the chord of the wing? or is the wing seated tightly at the leading edge? If the gap is constant, don't worry about it... the wings become MUCH looser on the carbon tube with time... and you'll be able to seat them better eventually. If the gap isn't constant and it were me, I'd probably cut a triangular scrap of balsa shaped like the gap glue it to the wing, and cover. I don't like making my wings permanent even on this size of aircraft.

That being said, I don't think the gap will noticeably affect the flight characteristics.

Tom

[Bobbydog]

Thanks alot guys. Yeah the tube is yellow and somehow I missed the tailwheel step lol. I've got er figured out now. Good thing I asked because I thought that thinner wire was for the aileron servos.

The wing is tight on the leading edge and about a 3/16 gap at the back. I still havent tightened up the wing holding bolts so I'll try that tonight, it might get closer with that tightened up.

I'll order a better tail wheel assembly once I know what to expect. Thanks for the input on that.

I think I made a big mistake with my CA hinges. I've never used them before and I think that I dont have enough deflection in my elevator. The hinges have so much resistance to movement I'm not sure at what point they are bottoming out. I'll have to do some more testing but I think that I've got 45 deg max. Do you guys think thats enough? Hope so...

Ive got all the control surfaces hinged and the main landing gear done, I'll post some pics later tonight.

Bob

[Highlights]

So................................. whats the latest?

You've been laying low for a while. Got this thing done yet?