Troy,
It was great dropping by your place meeting, your daughter Brooke, and catching up on all your pylon racing projects! Next time we need to go flying!

With only a few days left in LA I've been working hard to knockout out a few more fuses. I'm very happy with the current layup and so far I've done nothing in the building shed but layup parts. Chris Wolfe was given one of these as a beta tester. He is a great builder and pilot so there is no doubt the lasercut package he is going to create for the Electrolyte will speed up, and simplify construction. Can't wait to see his completed Electrolyte!

Also recently purchased two motors with 7400 and 8000 kv. Hopeful these will be good in a 3s application.

Nice line up pdawg!!

For those interested with the composite aspect of this project I thought it might be helpful to describe what I've learned about laying up sport jet type fuselages. This jet-like fuselage presented challenges I've not experienced with warbirds, and scale pylon racer type fuselages. Usually fuselages are made using layers of fiberglass that stretch the entire fuselage length. Thats normally the easiest way but its very difficult with this fuselage. I tried it on the first prototype and had a rude awakening. The problematic areas included the fuselage air intake which seems like a cliff in the mold and the four sharp wingsaddle edges (red arrow). With one continous fiberglass layer the sharp wingsaddle edges can create a situation where your chasing yourself in circles trying to remove the bubbles from the 4 corners. As you dab the bubbles out of one corner it stretches the layer of glass in the other corners creating bubbles in 3 other places. I was frustrated but laughing at my situation the day I layed up the first prototype.

My solution to this problem also serves to strengthen the fuselage at its weak area in the nose and in the area where the fan is mounted. Now each layer of glass on the fuselage is made up of 3 separate pieces of glass that overlap (green arrow) by about an inch in 2 spots. The overlap in the rear fuselage acts as a former for the fan and instead of dealing with 4 sharp corners of glass, each piece only has 2 corners to deal with making it very managable. The overlap near the intake not only solves the sharp transition issue but it also reinforces that area which has been shown to be the breaking spot on CN and NC Electrolytes. With this slight change in lay up schedule the fuselage is not frustrating to lay up anymore and instead just takes a few hours of patience.

This change actually ended up being an improvement in fuselage strength and in lay-up ease. I wouldn't hesitate to use this same technique for other jets with this general shape. food for thought....

Nice one. Now this is interesting. I have shown in the image where my first fan was sitting (yellow box in front) and where my fan is now located further rear. Could be why I had so many nose heavy issues.

Have you tried misting the cloth with 3M before laying up? You can still do it with vacuum bagging thin glass layers. The resin is thin enough to penetrate all of the layers and then it gives you more time to do the layup and get all the kinks out. After the glass is in, saturate it with epoxy and let it sit a few minutes to penetrate. Then mop up the extra and be done or put it in the bag.

Dan,
I've never used 3m 77 spray adhesive along with my molds. Not that I'm not open minded to the technique...its just that I wasn't taught to do it that way. Have you used that technique using multiple layers of cloth? In this case a layer of 2 oz and a layer of 4 oz crows weave? From the first pump of epoxy it takes me 2 hours to lay up both fuselage halves. How long would you estimate it takes using your technique with 3m77 and epoxy? Interestingly the requests from beta tester CN has leaned toward less kevlar and more strength at the expense of weight. Infact, of the 2 fuselages offered to Chris Wolfe, he picked the heavier & stronger one.

I have done it on three layers of cloth and it worked fine, just make sure you spray the cloth lightly and not the mold. I use 3M for the outside layer of .5oz cloth on the F-16 and it makes it fit around all of the complex curves and corners with one piece of cloth. After spraying the cloth I fold it hotdog style not letting each half touch. Then lower it into the mold and tack down the center and work the cloth out toward the outside of the mold. Make sure you work from the inside out or else you could get a bridge in the cloth. Do the same for the next layers and then just saturate the cloth working it with a brush. I will be making my F-104 fuse mold soon and when I layup the first one I will make thorough video with all of these techniques to share. Your jet is looking great.

well, i made a trade with bret.....he got the OG record breaking electrolyte, and i got a new fuse! man, the quality of the fuse....is freaking AWSOME! much stronger than the last one too! cant wait to get crackin (not literally!) on this puppy!!! im going for a super clean build...something the last one was not.

thanks again Bret!!!!!! you da bizzomb!

Brent's Electrolyte in review:
I wanted to do a little reverse engineering on Brent's Electrolyte to see how his building style differed from my own. For starters its amazing this plane still looks as good as it does. Apparently its been stuffed more than a half dozen times and might partially explain the 190 gram empty airframe weight! Looking at his model I'm most influenced by the simplicity of the flying stab. It looks good and eliminates the logistics associated with the hinging of elevators. I'm heading that direction for sure. And as Brent pointed out yesterday he removed most of the composite wingsaddle and that really weakend the fuselage in that area....something to be avoided in future models. I used a leading edge dowel and screws in the trailing edge to hold my wing on but Brent went with 4 screws in each corner. His method is likely faster! Overall his building techniques were different from my own and I plan to apply some of his methods on my next Electrolyte! Now its time to hang "Big Red" up the the Pdawg Air and Space Museum . Thanks CN!

Originally Posted by pdawg

Brent's Electrolyte in review:
I wanted to do a little reverse engineering on Brent's Electrolyte to see how his building style differed from my own. For starters its amazing this plane still looks as good as it does. Apparently its been stuffed more than a half dozen times and might partially explain the 190 gram empty airframe weight! Looking at his model I'm most influenced by the simplicity of the flying stab. It looks good and eliminates the logistics associated with the hinging of elevators. I'm heading that direction for sure. And as Brent pointed out yesterday he removed most of the composite wingsaddle and that really weakend the fuselage in that area....something to be avoided in future models. I used a leading edge dowel and screws in the trailing edge to hold my wing on but Brent went with 4 screws in each corner. His method is likely faster! Overall his building techniques were different from my own and I plan to apply some of his methods on my next Electrolyte! Now its time to hang "Big Red" up the the Pdawg Air and Space Museum . Thanks CN!

Did u get my pm

yeah that thing was starting to look a little ratty for me! too many fixes and configuration changes....

thanks for the new fuse and cores!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, my old girl still has some life in her...which is sad as it hasn't really ever stayed in the air for longer than 2 seconds....
The strip down and rebuild went well. I managed to shed around 4 ounces of weight off of it.
The plan for this version was to make it the way I was going to in the first place - depron flying surfaces and a 30mm EDF power plant.

The new fan is wound too hot for any of my speedies to handle and really should have one extra turn per arm to limit the top end but like an idiot, I'm going to go for it and just make sure I don't hit WOT as it WILL smoke.

So what we have now is a sheeted depron wing, full surface elevator, fan unit back a good 2 inches and changed out to a 30mm EDF. 3 x 5g servo's - all mounted in the fuse. Clear PETG used for duct tubing.

.
Even using 4S 850 G3's, I am still way nose heavy.

dng dude! looks awsome! 4oz less!!!! wow!

Very functional NC....I like it! Can you please explain what is sheeted with your depron wing? Is there balsa or something else in the middle?

Looking good Nitro!

Since it is sleepy time Down Under, I hope Nitro doesn't mind me quoting an excerpt from one of his PMs:

My wing is now 2mm depron sheet with a 3mm flat CF piece seperating the front and back halves as the spar. Another layer of 2mm depron on top with a 3mm depron spar or lifter to create a hump to make the airfoil shape in the top sheet. I think I have shed a good 3 or 4 ounces already just by changing the tail and wing back to depron. The wing is slick and thin.