Is there any plans or designs for building yourself a CG balancer to help find the CG of your plane?? I want to try and save myself the $30 that Great planes want for there CG balancer. Does anyone have any planes or has anyone built there own??

I have seen where individuals place two(2) pencils into a block of wood and balacne their plane that way, but I would like to try and determine where my CG should be on the planes I am building.

Thanks for any suggestions or any help

Gino

http://www.nwrcc.com/tips.htm

Straight edge, hung from ceiling/lamp/whatever, airplane hung at tip of nose & tail. Pendulum in the middle shows the CG. Should work for both fwd/aft & port/stbd.

Originally Posted by mrbaseballny

Is there any plans or designs for building yourself a CG balancer to help find the CG of your plane?? I want to try and save myself the $30 that Great planes want for there CG balancer. Does anyone have any planes or has anyone built there own??

You might have a look at "Vanessa" on my web site at home.mindspring.com/~the-plumber

Will these solutions allow me to balance a plane where I know the intended CG is supposed to be? LIke if I was told that for a certain plane the cg was supposed to be 4.25 inckes back form the leading edgeof the wing, I could set it up and simply place my equipment so that the plane was balanced at that point? Thanks for your replies

Gino

Add a 12-inch rule to what I pointed at above.

Originally Posted by mrbaseballny

Will these solutions allow me to balance a plane where I know the intended CG is supposed to be? LIke if I was told that for a certain plane the cg was supposed to be 4.25 inckes back form the leading edgeof the wing, I could set it up and simply place my equipment so that the plane was balanced at that point? Thanks for your replies
Gino

Vanessa does that quite nicely. You mount the model in the rig, and the plumb bob points to the current CG. That is, the plumb bob _always_ points to the current CG, where ever it may be.

All you need to do is add/remove/move weight around to get the design CG point directly under the plumb bob.

I wrote an addendum which if followed (no drawings yet) allows you to monitor the weight increase/decrease directly during the balancing "act".

Sorta handy when your model is up against a certain weight limit, like 55 pounds dry . . .

Hi Gino

Here is something I came across a while back called the Tinker Toy Balance Jig.

http://webpages.charter.net/rcfu/Con.../BJConstr.html

This seems to fit your description. It looks simple and effective.

Good Luck

NU1

I took a piece of 1x6 pine and drilled two 1/8" holed about 3" apart. Then I got a couple bamboo skewers and cut the points off and dipped one end in PROBOND. After it dried i stuch the non glued ends down in the holes and left the coated end up si it wouldn't scratch the wings.

Your basic free CG machine.
Don't work so killin' good with bipes, though.


Chuck