Here are a couple of pics for ya Mike.

I don't think a 20mAh cell will take the current draw of a 6mm pager, radio, and actuators.

What operating system are you running on your computer?
Win XP? Try this Image Resizer

Well guys, it is nice to see everyone moving along on their projects. There is some nice work being posted.

I am still moving forwards but only after several side ward steps. I started off building a BAT monoplane but never got any further than part of the wings before I took one step off to the side. It is still on my building list but not this time. I then started on something else that caught my eye. That's one of my problems, I am a magazine nut. I just can't resist them especially the UK pubs and the older issues Flying Models and Model Builder. I am off on some tangent for yet another project everytime I pick up a one of these magazines. And so it happened yet again.

Throughout all of this I did get to practice some wet forming and molding and I have started to expirement with bamboo again. I am starting to get good at splitting cane and Kabob skewers down to size. I think bamboo really has place, easily formed with heat and/or wet, strong - not nearly as strong as carbon fibre but much stronger than balsa or bass. I think you get the idea, use the right material for the right job and every material has its own unique properties.

I am now moving well ahead on what should be end up getting finished. It is 20's biplane racer and that's all I am going say for the moment; wouldn't want to jinx my progress by telling now and getting side tracked yet again. Details, penaut size plan enlarged 10% and will use a MPS narrow band reciever with 2x Bob Selman micro actuators 1x Kokam 145 mah Lipoly, geared M20 (probably just
taken straight from an E-Charger plane but re-proped) and covered with Jap tissue ( I like tissue and silkspan as I have a love hate relationship with iron coverings but I will Risten Microlite on some other project to compare) target weight is set conservately at about 30 grams. The wings are assembled and awaiting final sanding and trimming, the rudder has been wet formed and will be a quick build but I have been haveing no end of problems getting a good molding of the horizontal stab; try number 4 is on the new re-done now to dry overnight. 3 is supposed to be the charm but not this time

I will post some pictures later.

cheers, the other other Graham in Embrun near Ottawa Canada.

My Baby Ace is moving along slowly. Wing and tail feathers are covered. I don't remember tissue being so darn difficult. I decided to go "old school" and picked up some nitrate dope. It is difficult just to get the tissue to stick to the framwork. I tried some methods posted on the Small Flying Arts forums with mixed results. Wadding the tissue into a spitball sized wad before applying to the tail feathers sounded good. But, takes most all of the shrink out of the tissue (it is supposed to take most of the grain-wise shrinkage out). The stab had been weighted to the bench all week and I've been applying a dab of water to one hellish wrinkle whenever I get the chance. Best results so far are flat dry tissue with framwork that has a fresh coat of dope around the perimeter. The top wingtips are hell, but the wrinkles may shrink out. If the wings and fuse turn out too good, I'll be tempted to recover the tail (nooooo!!).

Decided to mount some of the radio gear before I started covering the fuse. I had been stalling and thinking about how/where to located the radio gear. I might as well try out the Falcon servos. Easier to mount than actuators? Hard to say. But, they will come out MUCH easier than actuators. I'm not a fan of glueing servos into anything anyway. The mounting screws are taken from notebook computer CD ROM drives. I'll have pics of the covered airframe later.

Keep the updates coming guys. I need more ideas!

Those servos looks very nice, Tib! What a clean looking job :-P

Thanks Pete. I wish my covering was half as good...

Suggestions on how to get tissue neatly over the wingtips? The tissue on one tore while drying or when I was rolling a wet Q-Tip over it to moisten it again. I'm not above recovering the tips if I have a resonable chance to do a better job using a seperate piece.

Oh, what about a dowel/pin setup? Instead of screws?
T shaped dowel with a pin forming an I

Originally Posted by Pete P.

Oh, what about a dowel/pin setup? Instead of screws?
T shaped dowel with a pin forming an I

Ya lost me there....To fasten the servos? How would they be held in?

The screws won't make or break the weight. It feels like it is gaining weight like a new wife as I add covering. Airframe covered with unfinished tissue weighs 11.3 g.

I'll update this post with a pic later today (it's 1am :-P)

Tiberius,

I covred the wings tips with their pieces of paper, trimmed it flush to the rib, and then covered the top of the wing. I shrink the tissue with a sprayer, usually my $5 airbrush, but a windex-type spary bottle will work in a pinch...

Mike,

Still waiting for pics of your Baby Ace

Used a single piece for each top and bottom half of the wing. Bottom looks great. Top of the wingtips...not so good. In reality they are good enough. If it turns out to be an outstanding flyer, I'll worry about recovering the tips then. They may also be included in the red trim scheme assuming I get to that too.

The fuse turned out fairly nice so far. Better than I thought it would when I started placing the tissue. How did you handle the longeron on the center of the side of the fuse? I just attached the tissue around the perimiter and shrunk it up with alchol. I've got to move my air compressor into the basement before I can seal the tissue and paint the nose. Should I apply any trim tissue before or after I seal/finish the tissue? I think trimming the tail would be much easier before it is attached to the fuse.

I've been hung up getting a job. That entailed taking tests and creating a sample programming assignment. Almost done so I can get back to the fun stuff...

On the longeron, I just made it in pieces added into the sides during building the side frames. Since the nose box was going to come out square and flush with the fuselage box, I kept it all in one plane.

I think you should shrink the tissue, dope it lightly, then add the trim tissue sticking it down with dope. That way, there won't be any uneven shrinkage issue to deal with...

Pix to come...

Here is the Baby Ace, covered, doped and painted. The 'pilot' is my 4 year old granddaughter, Naomi. She keeps dinking me for not putting 'the guy' in the airplanes I build... Weight as showns, without motor, battery or gear is 20 grams.

Mike,

That looks great. I bet your granduater will like the choice of pilot. What setup are you going to use?

E,

As heavy as it is, I will be going 'big' on the power with a geared N-20 and 2 small LiPolys. I have both a coule of RFFS modified for 2 cells and a Micro Joule with 2 cell ESC. I also have JMP RXs, but they are single cell only (I don't have a 2-cell adapter). I think I will add the MJ RX and use 2 Falcon servos like Tiberius shows in post #184 above.

The balsa sheets let into the fuselage in front of the tail will be where the push-rods exit. I have played around with the radio gear placement, and it looks like EVERYTHING will need to go in front of the LG - its going to be pretty crowded in there! I will mount the 2 servos on a thin balsa sheet that will span the fuselage frame-work and move it back and forth until I get it close to balancing, then lock it down. When I get it figured out, I'll post photos of that part, too.

BTW, Naomi is quite happy to be in the model. She is refering to it as her model!