Back to Basics

Warm sunshine and the lack of wind today persuaded me to get on with the Moonglow's wing. I haven't made things easy for myself by sheeting the top of the wing first. Now I'll have to join the two halves with everything upside down. I made up two sets of cradles to hold the wings at the correct dihedral angle. These were made from scrap bits, and when the wing halves were supported on them and a straight edge applied to one main spar, the distance from the straight edge to the opposite spar was a tad over 1 7/8". The plan calls for 2" dihedral under one wing tip, I don't think the designer would quibble over 1/8". When I fit the sheeting to the underside of the wing, I'm going to try a method I saw on YouTube. In the video, the sheet was taped to the trailing edge of the wing. Lots of PVA glue was applied to the ribs and structure, the sheet was flipped over and was made to contact all the glued areas, then the sheet was flipped back and all the glued areas showing on the sheet were re-glued, as were the ribs and structure. When the glue had dried, the sheet was flipped over again, and using a steam iron and a piece of cloth (tea towel?), the sheet was ironed on. I think this must be a better way than trying to "pin-and-glue-as-you-go".

I don't know whether the following notes should be in "Tales of Stupidity" or something similar. Recently I've had a very ordinary common cold, first one for over four years. Apart from a runny nose, the only remaining symptom is a distinct loss of balance now and then. I should have known better, but yesterday I decided to transfer Moonglow's fuselage from the Winter workshop in the spare bedroom to the proper workshop (shed). I picked up the fuselage, turned towards the doorway and stepped into what seemed like a hole in the floor. Most odd! Even odder was the sight of the shattered fuselage after I'd picked myself up. Fortunately the top decking was only tack glued and ended up with only minor damage. First job will be to recover the ply formers and the engine bearers, I thought about contacting Belair to see if I could get a set of laser cut parts just for the fuselage, but I'll do that only if I can't make a decent job of rescuing the ply parts. If I have to rebuild the fuselage from scratch, there'll be one good thing, there won't be a brown edged dovetail joint right in the middle of the fuselage sides. No pictures, no point.

Brian wrote:

is a distinct loss of balance now and then..

I would be more concerned about the above than working on the Moonglow. :blink: Now you have even more problems to deal with. Although maybe your Cold has affected your ears balance "gyro"

Stories of Stupidity? Your choice.:lol:

I think you have a touch of vertigo -my wife and son both suffer from it usually associated with an ear infection - the wise thing to do is contact your GP.

Brian - Sorry to read your incident, I concur with Kevin - in the past my wife suffered with Labyrinthitus
which is inflamation of the inner ear resulting in a loss of balance and falling over.
Forget the model and get checked out.

Regards

Colin.

Unfortunately, in my state of "gloom and despondency", I completely forgot that I had no balsa stock to be able to make a new Moonglow fuselage. Fortunately, Balsa Cabin had everything I needed and the parcel arrived this morning. Tomorrow it will be well and truly "Back to Basics".
Carry on watching this space, you may be surprised at what might happen next.

pleased to hear your gyro has stopped toppling

The past few weeks have been a bit of challenge one way or another, in the background I've been getting Moonglow's fuselage ready to re-build, a lot of tiny bits became several larger bits. Today all the fiddling proved to be worth the effort. I made an early start as the day was windless and slightly overcast, that made working on the model in the garden a lot easier. Things went pretty well, the glued up fuselage parts were held in a good old fashioned building jig, and by lunchtime, I was ready to fit the refurbished turtle deck. This was duly glued on after lunch, and by tea time I was able to take the fuselage out of the jig and do a trial fit of the fin and rudder as well as the tail plane and elevator. Checking the tail plane seating alignment with the wing seating showed a slight error. I slid a small piece of paper under one side of the tail plane seating, that brought both wing and tail plane into alignment. Tomorrow I'll shave a little away from the high side of the seating, I don't want a paper interface between fuselage and tail plane. Looking back, this is the first time I've had to rebuild a model before it has flown, at least there were no oily bits to make things even more difficult.

The wing was finally made into a one piece item a week or so ago, no drama at all. It has been sitting in its cradles showing no signs of warping, and today being suitably enthused after a couple of recent visits to the field, I started the task of sheeting the undersides of the wing. Fixing the sheet was no problem, I'd pre-cut each sheet ready to fix, all I had to do was line up the centre line mark, align the rear edge of the sheet with the trailing edge, And fit a tape "hinge" to maintain the alignment of the sheet during marking out and gluing up. The sheet has to be cut in various places, and I had fun with a sheet of lining paper trying to transfer the positions of the cuts for the ailerons, the servo hatch and the slot for the U/C wire. I had a couple of "goes" with varying results, caused I think by slight movements mainly caused by strongly gusting wind. Finally I hit on the idea of locating the areas to be cut with drawing pins taped on at the corners of the servo cover, each end of the U/C wire slot, and the two cuts needed to release the aileron from the main structure. I used standard 3M masking tape marked with a cross using a black ballpoint pen. The drawing pin was placed point up from the sticky side, the markings on the tape were lined up and the thing was pushed down firmly onto the structure. The pins were positioned, the sheet was swung down on the tape hinge, and all the pin points appeared above the sheet surface. I marked out the various cut outs and cuts using a straight edge against the pins. With that job out of the way, a final sanding of the wing structure and a good dusting off was followed by the application of a bead of Aliphatic PVA glue to all the contacting areas. The sheet was duly swung over and smoothed into position. An assortment of pins and tape were used to hold the leading edge tightly. Hope I can remember to cut on the "safe" side of the marked out cuts. I had intended to attach the wing skin by gluing it up, and swinging back the sheet on its hinge and leaving the glue to dry, Then using a domestic iron, replace the sheet and iron it down. Instead I have used generous amounts of glue, and when its all dried, I'll use the iron to ensure that the sheet is well and truly stuck down.

Today was fairly calm, and after a leisurely start, the top sheeting for the wing was completed well before lunchtime. I let the glue dry for three hours or thereabouts, then tried the steam iron and tea towel biz. It takes ten to fifteen minutes to "iron" each wing panel, I was pleased to find that it really does work. The bottom sheet on the right wing had lifted from the ribs in a couple of places, one really showed as it was the tip rib. Ironing re-fixed the sheet to the rib and it was still fixed this evening. It was gratifying to find that ironing works on glue that has been dry for a couple of days. I'd glued up the laser cut wing tip blocks, today I found they were a bit on the short side, I corrected this by adding a layer of 3/32" sheet to the inboard face. I fitted a 1/16" end rib to each wing tip, this is intended to give a 1/16" gap between the tip and the end of the aileron. I glued the tip blocks in place, and while the glue was drying, I cut out the access hole for the servo cover. The hole was cut slightly inside the marked outline, I checked the marked lines with the servo cover, to my surprise, everything lined up. Finished the day by temporarily fitting the servo cover. Not feeling smug yet, not until the second servo cover is done. Before putting it all away, I just had to dry fit all Moonglow's bits together, well you have to, helps keep the enthusiasm going.