Well it's been awhile since I built these two planes, but I've always planned on starting a build thread for them and now I'm finally getting around to it. So more or less in a nut shell here goes:

The intake was made of 3 mm depron and the grey peice at the front of the intake was made from an old f/g tail cone, any thick f/g will work to reenforce the chin scoop. Another 3 mm depron triangle peice was used for the splitter, the peice in between the upper intake and the fuselage. The approximate dimensions of the triangle are 85 mm wide by 75 mm long. I took the stock intake and cut notches out of the front section of it to accommodate the splitter, I cut the notches 75 mm back from the front lip and approx 10 mm high. I pretty much assembled and epoxied everything while it was seperate from the fuselage, then I cut the upper intake away from the lower one like you see in the pictures. I don't know if having a splitter helps me that much over the stock config, but I like to think it does cause the idea is that it takes clean air that's out and away from the fuse than directly off the fuse cause it's less turbulent and you'll get more thrust from it. I've seen others go similar speeds without it tho. I don't know what to think about the plugging the cheaters vs not plugging them debate, I just plugged mine cause I hate cheater holes.

I carefully pulled the paper off the wings. For the Miss Bud, I clipped each wing 45 mm (35 mm is exactly scale) at the tip and 10 mm at the root LE. The tip chord was reduced from 78 mm to 73 mm. After clipping the wings, you'll have to re-sand the airfoil and the fuselage around that area but it's worth it.

I used flat carbon to reenforce the nose section, wings, and taileron section. This is the carbon I used- http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXJDR4&P=7 Cut a slot in the foam and open it up a little with a flat head screw driver. Then open it up more using the tip of the carbon. Test fit the carbon peice in the slot and then take it out and put a little 5 min epoxy in the slot (it doesn't take much) and push the carbon peice in with a small flat head till it's below the foam. As the epoxy cures, make sure that the foam peice stays straight and adjust as necessary, when you force the carbon in the slot it will often tweak the foam section so make sure you tweak the foam back to straight before the epoxy cures. Fill the gap left over with lightweight spackle thinned with water (toothpaste consistency). You can use scrap foam to fill deep gaps, like for the nose reenforcements since the carbon has to be buried so deep at the nose.

The tailerons were made of 1/4" balsa and they pivot on a 1/8" carbon shaft that's epoxied to the original taileron hole in the fuse. The tailerons are held on by a wheel collar located inside of it. There is a 3/16" brass tube (I'm not sure on the exact size of the tube but I think it's that) epoxied in them and the carbon shaft goes through that and extends into a square hole where the wheel collar is (see pic).

The vert stab on the Miss was streamlined (and I added material to the aft bottom section to make it look more scale) and the Gray one was completely stock.

Before you glass it, use a sponge brush to cover the whole thing with water-thinned spackle and sand it down with 320 sand paper. This will fill in all the holes in the foam.

When you f/g it, use .75 oz or .5 oz glass and brush over the f/g with WBPU and a brush, then use a damp sponge to soak up the excess. Let it dry or hit it with a heat gun carefully till it dries and use a 3M 320 grit sanding block to sand off the excess f/g at the edges, don't use a knife cause that will leave seam marks. Do the bottom first of course. After you've covered the whole thing, fill the weave with baby powder and WBPU mixed to a pancake batter consistency. Sand that down with 320 or higher sand paper and it's pretty much ready to paint from there.

Use the f/g nose cone that Air Sally sells. PM him for more. The f/g tailcone is optional but the f/g nose cone you'll want. He also makes a f/g intake that would save you some time building the intake.

Nice thread Glenn. Very good pics and descriptive callouts.

All the tricks come out... well almost all of them.

Good idea on the rods to the nose, guess my fiberglass will have to do...

Originally Posted by fly_boy99

All the tricks come out... well almost all of them.

LOL did I miss something?

Originally Posted by fly_boy99

Good idea on the rods to the nose, guess my fiberglass will have to do...

Even with those rods there the nose can be overstressed and will crack with a hard landing, to build it as strong as possible you have to epoxy smaller flat carbon pieces into the fuse where the canopy sits....

See I just got more information out of ya!!!

Originally Posted by tailslide5_0

LOL did I miss something?

Even with those rods there the nose can be overstressed and will crack with a hard landing, to build it as strong as possible you have to epoxy smaller flat carbon pieces into the fuse where the canopy sits....

I've posted that picture before

Looks good. Are you done Yet? More pics please :-)

Am I done? lol I built these two last year, I'm just finally getting around to publicly showing my build photos and explaining what I exactly did. I didn't take a lot of pics when I built them.

secrets revieled! great mods. i really like how you did the servo's...i had the rest covered though great idea glen.

Question that cf spar is flat so are you putting the cf in flat or on it's side? It just seems that if you put it on it's side into the wing that you would almost be cutting the wing in half the spar is almost as thick as the wing twoards the rear edge of the wing right?

Originally Posted by Fidy$Trainer

Question that cf spar is flat so are you putting the cf in flat or on it's side? It just seems that if you put it on it's side into the wing that you would almost be cutting the wing in half the spar is almost as thick as the wing twoards the rear edge of the wing right?

Yeah the c/f is on it's side, I make a cut about 1/4" deep and I'm careful not to cut too deep. I didn't run the c/f the whole length of the wings because they do get about as thin as the width of the c/f. I tried to lay the spars in the thickest part of the wings too.

I forgot to ask what did you use to make your exhaust tube? I need to make one as well. Anything else you would have done diffrently on yours now that it's all over? Do you have an access hatch to your ESC? or is it in the nose? Trying to figure out where to stuff everything. I want to use magents to secure part of the bottom just not sure where to cut it. You mention you should have posititioned the fan a little further back? How far back about 2 1/2 " from where stock placement is?

Thanks for the help.

The exhaust tube is made from transparency/overhead film.

If I were to do anything different, I would have mounted the fan so the aft lip of the fan would be 1/2" or 1" behind the TE of the wings, and I would have clipped the wings only 35 mm, that's about it.

The esc is mounted behind the motor/fan, you can see it in this pic http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/attac...mentid=2612648 The ESC wires slip under the depron ducting through the trench in the fuse, and are fed forward to the battery area. I cut the access hatch about 3/4 to 1 inch behind where the front lip of the fan would sit, that way the fan could have a nice seating area to fit into. The front intake is permanently glued on. The mounting tabs on the fan are cut off and the fan is secured with two dabs of hot glue. The hatch is CA'd to the fuse and peel n stick covers all the seam lines.

Tailerons look good. I believe I may use ball links off the control horns to keep the push rods straight. ---Are the control horns thru bolted with a back plate or glued in like Funjet?