So I finally got around to finishing the printed landing gear for my Cessna. I originally wanted to print a mount for the support struts, but I decided against it, since I did not trust the connection by epoxy straight onto the side of the fuselage.
Instead, I went for a tested and tried combination of BBQ skewers and rubber bands, and the result feels way more solid than I'd hoped for. Take a look at the video to see the abuse it handles. I may need to add a second pair of rubber bands across to stiffen up the suspension, but all in all I am very satisfied with how the gear assembly performs!
Just a quick update on the printed landing gear project. I finally got around to printing my gear design, and mounted it on the Cessna, which by now has been through more repairs than Michael Jacksons nose. Anyhow, the gear fits well, and seems to have an adequate amount of suspension. It is not too soft, as I feared. Tomorrow, or this weekend, I will test it out.
After playing around with building the RCPowers foam jets for a while, I decided to make an attempt at creating my own plane. I started fiddling with some plans, and made the first iteration last Sunday. The specifications are loosely as follows:
Anyone who has built an RC foamie before should recognize the steps here. I printed the plans in poster mode, which means you have to manually tile them together. Not too much work.
All the parts cut out and ready for assembly
First test assembly (no glue)
With all the plans cut out from 3mm depron, I put them together without glue, to make sure everything fits well. At this stage, I realized that the plane might actually fly.
Gluing with epoxy, making sure things are relatively
I glued all the foam parts in place using 30 minute epoxy. It's slower than hot glue, and I'm not sure the added strength gives much of an advantage considering the breaking properties of depron (hint: it breaks. A lot.), but it should in theory save a few grams, and is a lot less messy.
3D printed control horns!
After gluing the parts, I finally mounted the power plant and the RC equipment. It really paid off having access to a 3d printer for the custom engine mount, but off-the-shelf stuff, or a plywood cutout should work just fine.
Mounting the engine
And finally, a video of the first prototype.
I did not yet maiden this plane, since I'm waiting for a really calm day. It's very light and most likely handles wind as well as Titanic handled icebergs.
I started building the spitfire kit this week. I acquired a plaster plate from the local hardware store, which made for a lot more stable building surface than my old scavenged cork board.
I am concerned about the reliability of the linear servos I got from ebay, but otherwise the build is going OK.
I printed a pair of servo holders, since there's an IC on the underbelly of the servos, making direct attachment to the balsa impossible.
Just a quick update on the hawker, this is what it looks like after assembly. Still need to apply strips of tissue along the seems, and seal the pores of the tissue. After that, adding the rubber band and nose cowl will finish the build.
I started building the pink Hawker Hurricane, which is a Guillows 506 kit, a couple of years ago. However, I never got around to finishing it. Tonight I got a spur of motivation, and pulled out the tissue paper and white glue.
The process is quite straight forward, the trick is to not apply glue to too big of a portion at the time.
After covering, the tissue has to be shrunk. This is done by applying water, which seems brutal. The end result should be pretty decent, although I did notice some creases that most likely will not stretch out completely. Regardless, it is a pink plane built mainly as a test for the RC conversion spitfire, so I do not care all that much.
So I finally got around to finishing the printed landing gear for my Cessna. I originally wanted to print a mount for the support struts, but I decided against it, since I did not trust the connection by epoxy straight onto the side of the fuselage.
