n00bs Gonna Build a Carden

[gareth.ky]

	Quote: Originally Posted by OnTheEdge
	Gareth, sounds like you don't have the hinges in yet. If that's the case, you might want to consider making the rudder removable. It will help it fit in the Subaru and at the very least, help you see out the passenger side mirror. (Not a bad thing on a long drive to a contest or funfly.) I did it to my Yak so I would fit in it the back of a pickup. Very easy to do takes only about an extra five minutes to assemble at the field. If you need idea about how to do it, let me know. Pretty straight forward. ...........Mark

The hinges wont be glued in until after the covering goes on. All the slots will be cut at this stage before the bevel material goes on the airplane.

I'm using the Dubro Heavy Duty hinges so I can put a wire in the tail if need be. Once its all done and I can test fit it in the car and make a call on how to hinge the rudder. Those hinges make it easy to put a wire through.

I'm planning ahead

[Bruce]

Gareth - good job on the thread and the plane.

In the event that you haven't come across it,
Robart also makes a hinge point without the metal rivet
to provide for a removeable hinge wire.

[Johnny MoJo]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Bruce
	Gareth - good job on the thread and the plane. In the event that you haven't come across it, Robart also makes a hinge point without the metal rivet to provide for a removeable hinge wire.

Bruce,

Can you post a link to these or a pic? I would be interested in seeing how the wire would go through these points and fasten.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

J.

[Bruce]

J
The Robart part numbers are 321 (1/8") and 322 (3/16). There is a picture on their
web site - just go to the site and click on hinges. Think you can get them from the
mail order houses, eg, Tower....

[Johnny MoJo]

Thanks Bruce! I'll check it out.

J.

[gareth.ky]

New photos up on Flickr. Some of them have notes, just wave the mouse over the image.

All the surfaces are cut out now. I'm taking my sweet time with this step because I only get 1 shot at it. I've only been flying 2 years but I've learned; Good flying airplanes are straight and have precise control surfaces.

[brandonduley]

looks great keep up the good work.

[gareth.ky]

Thanks for the encouragement guys!

Beveling the hinges is something I messed around with before I started building the kit. I got some wood from the hobby shop and did some trial runs. I wasn't going to have the money for a band saw so I had to find a way to do it accurately by hand. The first few tries didn't go very well.

The big problem with most of the wood is that its curved. Say for example it bulges up from the table in the middle. When you sand something like that you will sand more material from the middle than the ends. So you get this hinge thats not straight and comes away from the hinge line in the middle. The fix for this is pretty simple. I stick the parts down to a flat surface with 3M Spray Mount Adhesive. They don't move around so its easier to work on them and they wont get sanded out of true. When you need to get the part up off the table it can be popped off with a Bondo Scraper.

If you have a band saw none of this is really necessary and you can do this step in an hour. As it is each one of these probably takes me 1/2 an hour to razor plane and sand. I think the results are at least as good as the band saw though.

I made up some template in Sketchup to get the angles right for each bevel. 35 degrees on the ailerons, 50 on elevators and 55 on the Rudder. Because of the slight gap at the hinge line I will probably get slightly more throw than that. Here you can see the template is being used to mark the place where the bevel line crosses the side of the hinge material.

At the aileron root I started with a line that was perpendicular to the hinge line. I measured 1/2" towards the wing root from there and drew the final line. It looks better than perpendicular but I'll have to check for binding when I set up the hinges. Ailerons also extend 1 inch further towards the wing root than spec. You know... for torque rollin'

I'm taking Walt's advice on reinforcing the rudder with some 1/8" hard balsa set 1 1/4" back into the surface. Did the same thing at the wing root too. Glued with Poly.

[gareth.ky]

Oh man, this step just wont end. I just finished gluing the wing trailing edge stock in place. I didn't it bevel it either, it was too crooked to do on the bench.

Hopefully tomorrow I will get all the flight surfaces leading edge glued in place. I'm doing them last because they need to be positioned for clearances and thats hard do without the other edge glued in place. I'm also thinking about putting in the control horns in that step. It may be better do them after everything is set up though.

Right now its 2/3am (DST change over!) and I'm beat.

[Neil4]

I don't know if you talked about this in your desription but when cutting the aileron out, isn't the first cut closest to the wing root supposed to be parallel to the wing root? In the picture it looks as if it is not parallel.

Neil

[gareth.ky]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Neil4
	I don't know if you talked about this in your description but when cutting the aileron out, isn't the first cut closest to the wing root supposed to be parallel to the wing root? In the picture it looks as if it is not parallel. Neil

Its not parallel. If it is parallel it may bind at full deflection. Look earlier in the thread, there was some discussion on this. The plans and the instructions do not make a recommendation either way.

[gareth.ky]

Gotta have something to show for an entire weekend worth of work, right?





Really this is the step without end. It's madness! the rudder is done too but needs to be sanded. The ailerons still need to be fitted, glued and beveled. So still at least 2 more evenings of work before its all done. I cant wait for it to be over so I can move on to something else for a change.

[gareth.ky]

Couple more shots:


The 1/8" hard balsa stiffer bits are all sanded down.

Made a cradle out of scrap foam so I could work on the wings.

Getting ready to razor plane the bevels.

[gareth.ky]

It makes a difference.

I bought a bunch of "Norton" brand sandpaper when this project started because... I was at Home Depot and it was there. I just ran out of the course (~150) grit stuff and had to go get more. I wasn't really happy with how often I was changing sand paper on the T-bar sanders. It seemed to start going bald in just a few minutes of use but i didn't really think much of it.

Man I went out and got me some real 3M sandpaper. The Norton stuff was a HUGE mistake. You would think something like sand paper would be easy to get right. Not so it seams. The 3M stuff is going strong, easily outlasts the Norton paper by 3-5 times. Its a small thing but every time I have to put fresh paper on a T-bar its a 20 minute ordeal. Gotta peel and scrape the paper off and soak it in goo-gone to clean up. Then cut new paper and stick it on with 3M 77. Big wast of time.

Do yourself a big favor and seek out the 3M sandpaper. I found 3M it at Lowes but not Home Depot.

When you think about it, bad sand paper is a great scam. You just put some clever marketing on a box of crappy paper and wait for the customer to come back. All my Norton paper is in the trash can. You couldn't pay me to use the stuff now. No more wasted time for me.

Another good trick is this Abrasive Cleaning Stick. It can get the crud off the sandpaper, belt sanders, sanding disks and the like so they cut like new. This really helps when sanding foam which tends to clog the sandpaper

[mark786]

Gareth,
When I first started I used to cut my own sandpaper and used 3M 77 to glue it on because I was just not going to pay the premium for the roll paper. Got tired of that and finally bought the roll. Now I have every grit roll on the bench and about 5 different bars laying on the table with different grits and lengths. It would be the best 5 bucks you ever spent.

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXK321&P=0

Mark