plastic bat fuse

[Jim Poor]

I've seen one or two of these around. I have a few sets of wings that don't seem to have a fuse anymore. I'm looking for ideas/tips on making a fuse from a plastic wiffle ball type bat. Any advice will be great.

TKS
Jim

[woodsy]

Check out www.spadtothebone.com in the originals section i'm pretty sure theres info on building a bat

[rlt55]

I have one of the bats they spec on the SPAD site. It weights 200 grams.
A 3/4 Alum U-channel the same lenght weights 150 grams.

I think I'll stick to metal for now.

[Jim Poor]

good idea too. BUt alum is easy to bend no?

[TLAR]

I've built Spad fuselages from Coro, gutterpipe, plastic bats, and aluminum. Aluminum is my favorite. Especially the Square aluminum I built the Spa3dt out of!!! If that stuff bends..I've got more problems than needing a new fuselage :D

[TLAR]

Oh yeah...here's where we get the bats from:

http://home.comcast.net/~tipstrickslinks/sup_bats.htm

[Jim Poor]

I looked for the square aluminum at lowes and home depot. No luck. Where does one find it? I'm also looking for a replacement for a 1/4 inch square spruce stick. Looking for strength without much wieght gain.

[rlt55]

Those spare wings you have, are they Coro or Balsa?
Maybe a bat would be better for a wooden wing.

Channel should work well for most Coro wings, and
installing the tail and tail servos won't take more than an hour or two. Sawing up a cutting board for the engine mount and bending up some metal for main gear may eat up a couple of evenings. (I found installing the engine and servo took a while).

If I had some spare wings, I would build something like a QHOR or SPA3D without the wing.

Ace hardware (and many others) have channel in stock.

Steel WorkS ALUM-TRIM CHAN
For 3/4" Plywood 8-FT
SKU#58907

[Jim Poor]

I've got lots of spare wings, I've been hard on fuses lately.

I have:
A set of sheeted foam wings 1.5M from a Bobolink HLG
2 sets of wings from an Odyssey ARF
and a set of Windbuster wings that I want to experiment with a stronger fuse to replace the 1/4 inch square spruce stick fuse.

[rlt55]

Since you have 2 sets of Odyssey wings, it might be a good idea
to build a powered sailplane.
You could use a U-channel and dulicate the Odyssey tail in coroplast, and build a little mounting pad for the wing.
I would make the rudder and elevator a little larger to give a little
better control. As I recall, the Odyssey turns like a barge.

I've got some 1.5M HLG wings, but I've got a feeling that anything (glow) I make with them would come out like a rocket.
And of course they could not take the Gees on pull-out :(
I'll just save those in case I ever want another HLG. :)

[Jim Poor]

The Odyssey has ailerons two, turned really well, but the fuse was crap. I also have the tail feathers from an e-flight Ascent. They are a little bigger, maybe I"ll try that.