I am scratch building a Anderson Kingfisher amphibian. The plan calls for 3/8" round aluminum tubing for the wing and horiz. stab struts but I would like to use a profile aluminum tubing. Anyone know a supplier?

Why would you prefer the profile vs tubed?

http://www.aluminum-profiles.com/pro...um_profile.htm

K&S has a profiled tubing available. But it's made from a rather soft alloy so they tend to bend VERY easily.

"K&S has a profiled tubing available. But it's made from a rather soft alloy so they tend to bend VERY easily. "

I have used the K&S. If you fill the ends/attach points with hard wood, so you have something to bolt through, they are stiff enough. I have also flattened the end at the attach point to allow for flat to flat bolt attach..

Les

FWIW I'm using helicopter blades on my build, two per side. I haven't built it yet but they will be cut in half and fibreglassed back together so they have a mounting eye on each end. The ones I have are quite stuff, light, and very aerodynamic.

I have an RC Guys Decathlon. It's an ARF that came with pre-formed wing struts. They look very scale. They too are rather thin walled but they do the job.

Thanx for the heads-up about K&S.

A sneaky way to make K&S airfoil tubing a bit more resistant to being bent is to epoxy a length of spruce in the fat part of the airfoil. It'll support the tube, and stop it from collapsing.

"A sneaky way to make K&S airfoil tubing a bit more resistant to being bent is to epoxy a length of spruce in the fat part of the airfoil"

How about carbon fiber arrow shafts, or fishing pole blanks????

Les

Fishing rod blanks are tapered, so no.

Carbon rod or tube will work, for that matter hard balsa proabably would too!

FWIW I also bought some K&S tubing and also found it to be quite floppy, so I got some carbon tube to fit inside and it was quite a lot better. I couldn't figure out a decent way of anchoring the ends of the carbon tube though, so that's why I ended up going to the chopper blades.

But aren't you going to end up with struts that are fairly low aspect ratio?

I mean, if you look at a cessna's struts, they're pretty thin!

"Fishing rod blanks are tapered, so no."

Seemed to me like I had once bought blanks intended for the base section of sectional rods, that were straight. Maybe not.

Les

They may be if you're buying the lower part of 2 or 3 peice blanks, but I can't say for sure.

I know when I was building rods, they were all tapered, for the simple reason that they need to come off the buck they're made on!

Glenn Torrance Models sells aluminum struts by the foot. It"s first class stuff, seamless 6063 Aluminum.

http://www.flygtm.com/products.php?type=struts