Hello Steve , really dig your reinforcement ideas . Can you give me any good tips for reinforcing the nose fuselage section of any given foam board RC Plane ? Thanks
Mike- Thanks! Some carbon fiber wouldn’t hurt -it works best on EPO foam Planes, but it will add a LOAD of strength to a foam board plane too. Gluing on some HDPE plastic also adds lots of strength. You can use heavy HDPE in the nose as part of your nose weight. You can get heavy HDPE from any 5 gallon spackle can. I also keep my eye open for when people are throwing out those big wheels, and stuff like that- those are HDPE that’s very heavy, already made into lots of interesting shapes. I probably got 20 planes worth of curvy pieces to fit almost any plane nose out of one big wheels
hubinsc Hi! Well I prefer Professional Welder Glue (but it's often hard to find) for contact adhesive. We sell it hsre: www.killerplanes.com/content/glue-professional-welder-glue See Quick Grip's description here: www.killerplanes.com/content/beacon-adhesives-quick-grip-all-purpose-permanent-adhesive-2oz
Quick Drip.... is it like Welders contact adhesive? I'll bet Shoe Goo thinned with Toluene solvent works as well if not better and it's cheap. Only glue I know of that can hold up on a pair of shoes and have yet to find anything better when thinned down to the best ratio needed to penetrate and keep the weight down. I let it set wet and give it time to cure as it lets me slide the parts around and then shrinks and pulls tight and creates an amazing bond on just about anything. (BTW... Not Amazing Goop, cheap clone living off the Shoe Goo name with filler added & thinned down to use as a contact glue with no comparable elasticity and strength at twice the price. People say it's the same thing because they smell the same and never tested it side by side. It's OK but they got the name backwards IMO) I just capped the top and bottom of a 22 in 3.1 gram 1.5mm x 7mm word spar for a 90 gram 3D wing with .16mm carbon fiber tape and ended up at 3.75 grams and it's really strong and no flex now for a straight hinge line. But I used flexible CA that needs proper prep and a long cure time to get a good bond but's lighter in weight and easier to work with on something so small and thin at over 20 inches that has to be perfectly straight in all dimensions. But I sure hate filing and sanding the stuff... I wear protection and use a fan that blows outside. Can't believe you cut it like that! ;-) as filing just the 0.16mm thin tape (Dave Brown's) with a diamond file sends out little microscopic missiles that hit your arms and will make your skin red and prickle rather than itch... you do not want to breath or get the microscopic carbon fiber dust in you eyes. It's not dust or like fiber glass at all and 100 times worse I found. BTW good advice about angling the clamps.
It's amazing glue formulated for what's probably the hardest thing to glue, a dirty shoe with no chemical prep. Paint a thin coat on paper and let it fully cure and although it's thinner than the paper when you rip the paper you will see it doesn't rip and just stretches like a medical grade rubber band until it stops at a point where it takes a surprising amount of energy to get it to break. It can make EPP truly unbreakable used as an outer skin to protect the leading edge and EPP hinge lines. Out of the tube it's too thick for hobby use, but sometimes you can find Toluene solvent (the solvent used in it's chemistry) in the gallon at paint supply stores for just a few bucks more than a quart for around $12 and that will last years and make quite a few $4.50 3.7oz tubes from WalMart equal to a 6 or 7 oz tube and you can get big tubes of it for a lot less. And once cured the Toluene will re-melt hardened Shoe Goo so a mistake can be redone and a dried out hard tube left open saved. It really is amazing stuff and is an art in itself what you can do with it. Fill a cavity with it and it shrinks creating a thick lining and an air cushion. The list of what you can do with it is miles long. To have on hand, in glass jars on a scale I mix up 25% and 50% ratio mixtures so I know my cure times and how it will behave (go too thin and the Toluene solvent will make the paint on EPP soften or run if you don't work fast) and use those two ratios the most but for penetrating and light weight "skins" on EPP that stop most landing rash I'll go even thinner and like to work in layers. Taping off areas if not removed almost immediately will leave lines with a loose skin on the edge in spots so on say a flying wing's elevon hinge line I want built up I start with the outer width on the hinge line that needs to be thinner at the edge to save weight and start with as thin a coat as the paint will allow to penetrate the EPP (which is too thin a coat to leave a line) and work my way in using a thicker ratio towards the center making the inner coats narrower and thicker till right on top of the hinge line where I make it the thickest allowing me to sand the EPP underneath it to just below the paint so the EPP hinge is free to move as if it were a tape hinge and this lets the outer control surface bend and flex less without the normal EPP hinge resistance at the ends. A final thin coat over the entire area dissolves the edges and makes them disappear and gives and EPP paint jobs a glossy finish. I don't use a card to spread out the Shoe Goo thick like some say to do when "skinning" EPP because an outer protection skin will be weak and break at the thinnest points in the skin so you want an even thickness. Using a card on rough hot cut EPP lives the sharp high points with a super thin coating and fills in the low spots with a much thicker layer adding weight so on rough hot cut EPP I use a paint brush and a thin coat working fast and flip the wing over upside down immediately before the solvent evaporates so it runs down and covers the high spots, and let more run to the leading edge where needed.. You end up with twice the strength at half the weight I figure. Shoe Goo adds weight so I use as little as I can get away with when skinning and put it where it does the most good on the nose and leading edges. I've seen EPP foam flying wings built with CA and hot glue explode into pieces hitting an object and I've seen them bounce hitting harder without damage where 100% Shoe Goo was used. If dogfighting and on a budget some nylon string in place of Kevlar kite line put in a slit cut with a sharp razor knife down the leading edge and completely around the wing and tied in the middle then sealed with Shoe Goo cannot be seen when done right and will absorb energy and hold the wing together beyond it's ability to generate energy unless you put a V8 in it;-) Not sure why people use hard brittle CA on EPP foam just because it doesn't melt the foam.... it can still ruin it. Have fun...
+derjoh1986 That's a good idea for the sub 200g 3D foamies... doing it in one sheet and then laser cutting it in strips would be so much faster.. very tedious capping wood spars that are a 3rd the weight of a full carbon spar.
i like the authentic o'messerschmidt accent while you 'rabbited' the spar
geneticallyinferior1 Dankshoen! ; )
Great idea thanks 👍👍
Glad to help!
Almost pulled mine of with a clamp one time, wished I had it on at an angle, good tip Steve.
Johnny J Learn by doing, right? ; )
Hello Steve , really dig your reinforcement ideas . Can you give me any good tips for reinforcing the nose fuselage section of any given foam board RC Plane ?
Thanks
Mike- Thanks! Some carbon fiber wouldn’t hurt -it works best on EPO foam Planes, but it will add a LOAD of strength to a foam board plane too. Gluing on some HDPE plastic also adds lots of strength. You can use heavy HDPE in the nose as part of your nose weight. You can get heavy HDPE from any 5 gallon spackle can. I also keep my eye open for when people are throwing out those big wheels, and stuff like that- those are HDPE that’s very heavy, already made into lots of interesting shapes. I probably got 20 planes worth of curvy pieces to fit almost any plane nose out of one big wheels
Fine workmanship. Is that the best brand of contact cement?
hubinsc Hi! Well I prefer Professional Welder Glue (but it's often hard to find) for contact adhesive. We sell it hsre: www.killerplanes.com/content/glue-professional-welder-glue See Quick Grip's description here: www.killerplanes.com/content/beacon-adhesives-quick-grip-all-purpose-permanent-adhesive-2oz
Quick Drip.... is it like Welders contact adhesive? I'll bet Shoe Goo thinned with Toluene solvent works as well if not better and it's cheap. Only glue I know of that can hold up on a pair of shoes and have yet to find anything better when thinned down to the best ratio needed to penetrate and keep the weight down. I let it set wet and give it time to cure as it lets me slide the parts around and then shrinks and pulls tight and creates an amazing bond on just about anything.
(BTW... Not Amazing Goop, cheap clone living off the Shoe Goo name with filler added & thinned down to use as a contact glue with no comparable elasticity and strength at twice the price. People say it's the same thing because they smell the same and never tested it side by side. It's OK but they got the name backwards IMO)
I just capped the top and bottom of a 22 in 3.1 gram 1.5mm x 7mm word spar for a 90 gram 3D wing with .16mm carbon fiber tape and ended up at 3.75 grams and it's really strong and no flex now for a straight hinge line. But I used flexible CA that needs proper prep and a long cure time to get a good bond but's lighter in weight and easier to work with on something so small and thin at over 20 inches that has to be perfectly straight in all dimensions. But I sure hate filing and sanding the stuff... I wear protection and use a fan that blows outside. Can't believe you cut it like that! ;-) as filing just the 0.16mm thin tape (Dave Brown's) with a diamond file sends out little microscopic missiles that hit your arms and will make your skin red and prickle rather than itch... you do not want to breath or get the microscopic carbon fiber dust in you eyes. It's not dust or like fiber glass at all and 100 times worse I found. BTW good advice about angling the clamps.
+John F Hendry I'm going to have to check that stuff out- I always wondered what kind of glue they used on shoes. Thanks!
It's amazing glue formulated for what's probably the hardest thing to glue, a dirty shoe with no chemical prep. Paint a thin coat on paper and let it fully cure and although it's thinner than the paper when you rip the paper you will see it doesn't rip and just stretches like a medical grade rubber band until it stops at a point where it takes a surprising amount of energy to get it to break. It can make EPP truly unbreakable used as an outer skin to protect the leading edge and EPP hinge lines.
Out of the tube it's too thick for hobby use, but sometimes you can find Toluene solvent (the solvent used in it's chemistry) in the gallon at paint supply stores for just a few bucks more than a quart for around $12 and that will last years and make quite a few $4.50 3.7oz tubes from WalMart equal to a 6 or 7 oz tube and you can get big tubes of it for a lot less. And once cured the Toluene will re-melt hardened Shoe Goo so a mistake can be redone and a dried out hard tube left open saved.
It really is amazing stuff and is an art in itself what you can do with it. Fill a cavity with it and it shrinks creating a thick lining and an air cushion. The list of what you can do with it is miles long. To have on hand, in glass jars on a scale I mix up 25% and 50% ratio mixtures so I know my cure times and how it will behave (go too thin and the Toluene solvent will make the paint on EPP soften or run if you don't work fast) and use those two ratios the most but for penetrating and light weight "skins" on EPP that stop most landing rash I'll go even thinner and like to work in layers.
Taping off areas if not removed almost immediately will leave lines with a loose skin on the edge in spots so on say a flying wing's elevon hinge line I want built up I start with the outer width on the hinge line that needs to be thinner at the edge to save weight and start with as thin a coat as the paint will allow to penetrate the EPP (which is too thin a coat to leave a line) and work my way in using a thicker ratio towards the center making the inner coats narrower and thicker till right on top of the hinge line where I make it the thickest allowing me to sand the EPP underneath it to just below the paint so the EPP hinge is free to move as if it were a tape hinge and this lets the outer control surface bend and flex less without the normal EPP hinge resistance at the ends. A final thin coat over the entire area dissolves the edges and makes them disappear and gives and EPP paint jobs a glossy finish.
I don't use a card to spread out the Shoe Goo thick like some say to do when "skinning" EPP because an outer protection skin will be weak and break at the thinnest points in the skin so you want an even thickness. Using a card on rough hot cut EPP lives the sharp high points with a super thin coating and fills in the low spots with a much thicker layer adding weight so on rough hot cut EPP I use a paint brush and a thin coat working fast and flip the wing over upside down immediately before the solvent evaporates so it runs down and covers the high spots, and let more run to the leading edge where needed.. You end up with twice the strength at half the weight I figure. Shoe Goo adds weight so I use as little as I can get away with when skinning and put it where it does the most good on the nose and leading edges.
I've seen EPP foam flying wings built with CA and hot glue explode into pieces hitting an object and I've seen them bounce hitting harder without damage where 100% Shoe Goo was used. If dogfighting and on a budget some nylon string in place of Kevlar kite line put in a slit cut with a sharp razor knife down the leading edge and completely around the wing and tied in the middle then sealed with Shoe Goo cannot be seen when done right and will absorb energy and hold the wing together beyond it's ability to generate energy unless you put a V8 in it;-) Not sure why people use hard brittle CA on EPP foam just because it doesn't melt the foam.... it can still ruin it.
Have fun...
Have you ever thought about selling already beefed up carbon fiber spars?
+derjoh1986 I'll take it!
I meant, you sell some that you already modified
+derjoh1986 That's a good idea for the sub 200g 3D foamies... doing it in one sheet and then laser cutting it in strips would be so much faster.. very tedious capping wood spars that are a 3rd the weight of a full carbon spar.
Seems gol dang complex, whe you could have just sat there with a beer and looked at the clouds out the window.
wordreet LOL! You've got a point there!
wordreet That's what I WAS doing. It's what happened to my thumb.
Killer Planes A beer happened to your thumb?
Terrrrific. This is like watching an AvE video sans the innuendo and borderline language :)