Foamies are definitely addicting. Here are three new ones, the orange/green version is the new Lite Crack Yak from Twisted Hobbies. 5.6oz ready to fly, great for indoor flight. I was able to get a couple of unprinted standard Crack Yaks from TH and Gary Pierson (flyboyz43) painted them for me. Unbelievable airbrush skills. The round thing started life as a Crazy Bird and I left off the beak & feathers.

Azarr

Oh man... that paint is truly awesome! Sick lookin Crack Yak bro! Love the white flames in the leading edge...

Great airbrushing. I am still amazed at how that is done.

Conehead
Orrin Eldred

Can you post a pic of the landing gear please. Anyone know if the gear will be for sale separate from the kit?

I painted the yaks for Azarr, and in the kit, I didn't see any wheels. I did see the plywood horns and spar, and a couple of CF rods for what could be the gear legs...

The standard CY comes without gear. The Light CY uses 3mm flat carbon stock with a short piece of CF rod that you wrap with thread and CA to form the axle. You don't need to buy it separately, a piece of 3mm flat stock and a piece of 1.5mm rod and you'll have enough for quite a few planes.

There's a piece of 1mm ply that's inserted vertically into the fuselage bottom piece. One landing gear goes in front of the ply piece and up into a pre cut slit in the wing. The other goes behind the ply piece and when you're satisfied they're level you wrap the ply center piece/gear legs and hit with CA.

Pretty tough to get a picture of it, but this should give you the idea.

I built this stock because that's what the kit had, but for most of my light builds if I use a gear I just use a piece of 1.5mm CF rod. If you quickly lay a soldering iron on the CF it will melt the epoxy matrix, hold it at the angle you need for the axle and hit it with CA, now you have a one piece LG as light as you can possibly get.

Azarr

Great info Azarr! Thanks for the response and ideas

Originally Posted by Azarr

If you quickly lay a soldering iron on the CF it will melt the epoxy matrix, hold it at the angle you need for the axle and hit it with CA, now you have a one piece LG as light as you can possibly get.

Azarr

That is a great tip I never would have thought of but it makes perfect sense. Have you tried doing it with a jig and heat gun? You know, sort of like a music wire bender with a heat accelerator/enabler? The 1.5mm is sturdy enough?

Jim

Originally Posted by coreman

That is a great tip I never would have thought of but it makes perfect sense. Have you tried doing it with a jig and heat gun? You know, sort of like a music wire bender with a heat accelerator/enabler? The 1.5mm is sturdy enough?

Jim

I've never bothered with a jig because different planes require different gear placement and a different angle on the joint, but I suppose it would work. I put a piece of heat shrink over the joint. 1.5mm is plenty strong enough for ~ 6oz or less, I've never tried it for anything larger. For my outdoor stuff I generally don't use landing gear. For heavier planes I use 3/32 fiberglass kite spars/music wire & sharpie them black. the FG is much more forgiving than CF.

A lot of the cheap plastic kites use 3/32 FG spars. If you wait till the "marts" close them out you can get them cheaper than buying the spars from a kite store

Azarr

Originally Posted by Azarr

I've never bothered with a jig because different planes require different gear placement and a different angle on the joint, but I suppose it would work. I put a piece of heat shrink over the joint. 1.5mm is plenty strong enough for ~ 6oz or less, I've never tried it for anything larger. For my outdoor stuff I generally don't use landing gear. For heavier planes I use 3/32 fiberglass kite spars/music wire & sharpie them black. the FG is much more forgiving than CF.

Azarr

The jig was more a question towards production techniques than anything. I get a lot of questions about landing gear for my Yaks and feel I need to do something. My preference would be to make them removable by having them key into the plywood center support with a piece of CF strip glued to the shaft and maybe seat into a piece of fuel tubing in the wing?

That would make sense for your stuff. I like the idea of the fuel tubing, serves 2 purposes, removable and shock absorbing. I really like the FG rod over the larger diameter CF, very little weight penalty and much cheaper. Last time I checked, the kite shops were selling it $1,75 for 48". Might make a good optional accessory package for your kits.

Azarr

Originally Posted by Azarr

That would make sense for your stuff. I like the idea of the fuel tubing, serves 2 purposes, removable and shock absorbing. I really like the FG rod over the larger diameter CF, very little weight penalty and much cheaper. Last time I checked, the kite shops were selling it $1,75 for 48". Might make a good optional accessory package for your kits.

Azarr

I'm doing good with my CF wholesale supplier costs but i hear you on the brittleness. One of the things a local guy had done was do a silicon tubing "y" to do the central joint also which adds to the shock mount aspect. I will have to play with this over the holidays. I might try a 2mm version but i realize the 1.5mm is a 1/16" axle. The key piece you provided was the concept of bending and that will move this forward more than it had.

Thanks