Originally Posted by RCvehicleGuy

I've heard a router used for this before....
Believe it or not I am actually building some planes in my Tech class this year and have access to a router... Might have to try this for milling.
V bit for a hinge seems like I might get a little crossed up. I know from previous builds that you're screwed if that hinge is not PERFECTLY straight. A Knife against a straight edge seems to provide the most consistent results. I get little waves free hand though.
I do the beveling free hand. That is very reliable and I can leave a little bit of foam left so I have a foam and tape hinge. Kinda neat but not necessary.

The idea of using the V bit in the router for the hinge line is so you get a living hinge. You do not have to cut all the way through the depron and the skin forms the hinge. this eliminates the need of taping the hinge line. Saves another 1 to 1.5g on a typical F3P model. All you need to do is run the router against a straight edge. Its honestly really easy. Mind you having my own CNC router makes all this history now.

Originally Posted by wildpalms

Nice if you have your own CNC mill :-)

I've had a few things CNC cut commercially and quite cheap as very little tool time involved. As soon as I had milling done the time goes up and the cost was getting silly.

Andy has his own machines. The way to go.

Dave

The big ones just almost ready for the final connections too Dave, Full sheet of Depron aero just fills the bed nicely with not so much as a mm to spare in any direction. Wonder if that was a fluke

Not easy to tell on this image but "MTF" means the depron becomes translucent once its been milled. Skin thicken of around 0.35mm

Now I'll have to try milling a plane. Looks doable. Should be fun.

Milling by hand is surprisingly easy and surprisingly fun. Never as easy or tidy as CNC though. It makes one hell of a mess :-)

Who will be first to ask Andy what MTF means then :-)

If I was going down the route of paying a third party to cut I would go the whole hog and go for mylar. Best stuff is to get it from a free flight supplier. Very very thin, light and rather strong.

Dave

Originally Posted by wildpalms

Milling by hand is surprisingly easy and surprisingly fun. Never as easy or tidy as CNC though. It makes one hell of a mess :-)

Who will be first to ask Andy what MTF means then :-)

If I was going down the route of paying a third party to cut I would go the whole hog and go for mylar. Best stuff is to get it from a free flight supplier. Very very thin, light and rather strong.

Dave

I know I said this somewhere else before. But you can also use Saran wrap to cover a mylared plane. I have done that once. Plus instead of milling out my holes I can just grab my knife and go to town on it.
I am going to try milling though so I can have a little experience in that... Next model.

Chris G.

I intend to do a mylar model some time this season also using Mylar from frreflightsupplies.co.uk, that is as long as Gary's still happy to put some paint on it

right im back on this project now.. ill be sending the Cad files over to brett (my CNC guy) and have a couple of test planes made up...

K

Good luck!

Chris G.

Thanks RcVehicleGuy,
i made a Teeny mod to the postioning of the Brakes to rid the pane of KE coupling as much as possibe and also a mod to the wingtips to help with rolling harriers ...

Gonna send over the files today... and see what brett can do...

K

Sweet, what does it do in knife edge? Track to the gear side? Try some landing gear with big wheel pants if it still does that, if I guessed right in the first place...
You could also move the wing position around. Lots of things you could try.

Chris G.

A lot of people say knife edge coupling is all in the CoG. You could mess around with that too!

Free

Suppose the vertical CG could work in ridding yourself from coupling but then you get adverse yaw buffoonery because the CG is under or over the rolling axis.
Us plane designers just can't win can we?

Chris G.

haha!
yes how'd yoou know it was rolling to gear side.. ?
im adding the wheel pants to the Cad drawing and sending those off now..

K

BTW rolling circles are now a Breeze!

Originally Posted by 3DDFHobbies

a feature you may not see on many F3P Planes is TFG's (Top Force Generators) to improve Elevator Effectiveness aswell as way Over-Size SFG's (Side Force Generators) to improve Rudder Effectiveness and Stabilize Wing rock Near and Below Stall speed... i'll include a Picture on the Next Post....

The TFG (Canaliser) is there to improve rudder response, not elevator and is common on most F3P models since Donatas made it popular with his knowledge gained from F3A