Ep 42: Duellist Updates, and a Primer on Balsa Builds

[00:00:04] To RC Plane Lab, a podcast for anyone interested in RC airplane. We’ll share tips and tricks on how to build models and talk about successful flights, epic crashes and everything in between. Visit us at rcplanelab.com to sign up for our email list and to ask us questions. You can also text us or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846. Please help us out by rating and reviewing us in your favorite podcast app. Thanks for spending time with us today. Now here are your hosts: Ron.

[00:00:37] Hello everyone and welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I’m Ron and I’m Tom. Happy belated.

[00:00:43] Halloween. That was last week, I know, hot off the heels of the halloween episode. How’s everybody tonight doing? Fine, and you, I’m kind of in a candy coma. I mean, so we weren’t home to pass out halloween candy so I just went ahead and ate all the halloween candy myself. You were out here actually on halloween. I know I ate it the day after.

[00:01:12] No, it was nice you guys came out and we smoked a rack of ribs on the smoker. Yeah, what they.

[00:01:20] Reminded me of. I mean so I’ve never done beef ribs before and these were like the full rack, not short ribs. They remind me of the flintstones- remember that cartoon, oh yeah. And when fred was in the car and they put that rack of ribs on the side of the car and it fell. Yeah, that’s how big.

[00:01:35] These, these ribs were. They were large. Well, maybe you’re you’re not remembering it exactly, correct because you were asleep when we ate them. So you prepared the ribs and you gave me the instructions for cooking them. I did. You told me they’ll take about five hours. Five hours, yeah. Put them on the smoker at 11 in the morning. Yes, I dutifully did that. You did. It was followed. Instructions perfectly: 1102. I closed the door on the smoker and they were on there. We ate at 1: 30 in the morning.

[00:02:09] I’m so glad, like we, we had thrown the pork loin on there just to have his leftovers for us, since we were firing up the smoker anyway, and that’s what we had for dinner thing. Yeah, good thing you did.

[00:02:20] That because that was an epic fail on my part. Oh, that is too funny. Well, I mean I had- yeah, I had never done- beef ribs before on the smoker and so now I know to treat them just like everything else. I put on the smoker roughly two hours per pound, yeah, 1. 30 In the morning: yeah, five hours was very optimistic.

[00:02:42] Well, yeah, over double that, yep, double plus two, still 14 and a half hours. Yeah, sorry, that’s okay, but they

[00:02:51] Were good. Okay, they were okay. So just this evening, before heading out here, lori opened up the other rack because we took that whole other rack home. Yeah, because nobody was hungry. Nobody was hungry in the morning, 30 in the morning after snacking all night. So she took, yeah, she opened them up just before I came out and she said she sliced it into one and it was not as fatty as the other ones. Oh, so I’m wondering if maybe there’s a certain portion of the rack of ribs from a no,

[00:03:22] From a beef that might be, I don’t know, but they actually looked really like ribs should look not just full of. I mean, they tasted good, but there was a lot of fat in them. I’m not a big fan of all the fat. Yeah, I mean I couldn’t handle some, but that was. Yeah, that was a lot, yeah, but so the flavor was good.

[00:03:39] Well, this is the RC Plane Lab podcast. Yeah, not the smoking podcast, but I just wanted to bring it up that you told me five hours and we didn’t eat till 1: 30 in the morning.

[00:03:49] Yes, Ron, you like to point out when I’m wrong, and I will gladly own it because you did exactly as I.

[00:03:56] Asked you to do. No, what? It’s stories like that you look back on and you laugh at. I will remember that for a long yeah, and I’ll hear about it for a long time. Oh, you will. Rc airplanes: what do we got? Or, I’m sorry, what were you gonna say? Well, the halloween episode.

[00:04:12] That was fun. I had a good time with that, so did I, and it got me thinking right. So the holidays are coming and I thought wouldn’t it be kind of cool we could do something special, maybe every holiday? So the next holiday is thanksgiving. So it got me thinking: hey, wouldn’t it be kind of neat to talk about what, what I’m thankful for as far as the hobby is concerned, friends and good times at the field, things like that. And wouldn’t it be neat- in Tom’s opinion refer to myself in the third person- wouldn’t it be neat if, if some of our

[00:04:47] Listeners maybe called us and or reached out to us and let us know what they’re thankful for. So maybe be thinking about that and getting a hold of us and let us know. Maybe we’ll talk about that on.

[00:04:57] The on the show. I think that’d be fun. Yeah, Ron thinks that’s a good idea too.

[00:05:02] So, yeah, you can. You can get a hold of us like all the ways we’ve we’ve talked about. You can text us or leave us a voicemail at 1-818-351-9846. You can email us Ron at rcplanelab.com or Tom at rcplanelab.com. You can also log on to our or get onto our website and click that cool contact us link and you can get all of us that way too. I’d love to hear about what you guys are all thankful for, and we’ll- we’ll- talk about it on maybe a thanksgiving special. Yeah, that’d be.

[00:05:34] Fun. If we can do that, we’ll do a. Yeah, just what you said: we’ll do a thanksgiving special there.

[00:05:41] You go. I had nothing to add to that, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I can think of several things that I’m thankful for I won’t talk about now, but yeah, I think some kind of little thanksgiving special might be fun. Yeah, and thanksgiving wouldn’t be too early to talk about. Maybe things you might be wanting for christmas so we could do, like, maybe a christmas special too, wouldn’t that be fun? You’re planning this whole thing out, aren’t you? Well, I, like the I’m I’m a big fan of the holidays. Yeah, mostly because I get time off from work and I can work on airplanes.

[00:06:12] That is what christmas is all about: working on airplanes, right? Oh, speaking of airplanes, what have

[00:06:18] You worked on hey, so I got some stuff done on the duelist, good, yeah, yeah. So I was out for halloween and you were nice enough to cut the remainder. Cut the remainder of my, of my parts for me, for my nacelles and my fuselage formers. So I took those home in my hot little hands and the next day I actually built my nacelles and kind of fitted them to the wing- not permanently yet, but the fit is really good. Actually, I’m quite happy with how they fit. So it’s going to require a minimum.

[00:06:51] Of reshaping of the cutouts and stuff. So yeah, they should have fit pretty well because, like I said, yours were cut off of the plans I cut for your wing. Yep, because the wing you have was not cut off the redrawn plans that I did gotcha. So they’re not perfectly symmetrical and don’t line up as well as mine do, but they line up pretty good they do, but mine would not fit on yours and yours would not fit.

[00:07:15] On mine right, right, so well, it makes sense and the cutout, the cutout on the nacelle formers- matches perfectly, or nearly perfectly, the rib that it sits over, because it was actually it used the rib profile.

[00:07:28] To make that cutout. Yes, I did. Yeah, so, and then I added the 32nd of an inch right for the sheeting. Yeah,

[00:07:35] Whatever, it ended up being: yep three, 30 seconds times two. Yeah, times two. So, yeah, it did. It fit really good. And they both actually like when I slid them on and they slid them till they stopped, till the friction made them stop. I measured from the center to the inside edge of each one and guess what? I hope they match. They were within a sixteenth of an inch. Oh, that’s pretty good. So that’s pretty doggone good. I’m really happy with that. Yeah, I did a good job. Yeah, you did. You did a good job redrawing them. I mean, that was a lot of work, yeah, but that’s all right. Anyway, yeah, I got. I got those.

[00:08:07] Built and ready to well. I guess my next step is I’m going to figure out where I want to mount the throttle servos, because I’m going to do separate servos and I’m going to bury them in the wing, I think underneath the nacelles, but inside the nacelle framework, if that makes sense. Oh yeah, so I’ll have to cut a hole in the sheeting and add some servo mounts and yeah, stuff like that. But I’m

[00:08:29] Going to do that. Should have done that before you sheeted it. Yeah, but I didn’t know exactly.

[00:08:34] Like I’m a visual guy, yeah, hard for me to picture what it’s going to look like until I actually physically see it on the airplane. So I get having the nacelles actually in position, even though they’re just kind of friction fit right now, having them in position really gives me a good, solid understanding of how everything is going to work. And I still haven’t really committed to mounting the engines on their sides, like I’m still giving thought to mounting them upright and that’ll change where the throttle servo gets mounted. Yeah, obviously so. And then, if you mount

[00:09:09] Them upright. Where will the exhaust go? Well, they, in this case, they would go over the wing. They should go, they should go over the wing. Yeah, I know that’s what you want, but I think they look really cool, like when, when the engines are mounted on their sides and the pipes go down and underneath the wing and you can just see the pipes poking out the back of the wing from the top. I think that looks cool and it’s very clean on the top that way. Yeah, so, but anyway that, yeah, it’s your playing, you do what.

[00:09:35] You want. That’s true, it is and I will. Good then, that’s one thing. So I was a little concerned with how well the nacelles were going to stay on, like, actually stay on the wing, like I wasn’t sure really like how I was going to glue them on and what type of glue I was going to need and what, just to make sure it doesn’t come off. But then the first time I slid those on that I mean it holds on to that wing really well because of that shape. Yep, it actually grabs that wing. It’s almost like a clamp pretty much. It’s not coming off. No, I mean, like you could probably fly.

[00:10:07] That without glue and not have any problems. At least I’m not sure I’d go that far. But yeah, well, I’m talking about coming straight from the front, you wouldn’t have any problems with them. Yeah, yeah, no.

[00:10:20] Definitely not. No, they’re definitely locked in position yeah, four and aft. So that when I first

[00:10:25] Put those on, I kind of lost all my concerns, yeah, about how I was going to attach them, yeah, and with

[00:10:32] Yours being electric, I see no reason, especially looking at the fit of yours on the wing, I see no reason why you couldn’t CA those on, yeah, I mean, yeah, I’m sure there’s maybe a listener or two out there that’s cringing at the thought of mounting the nacelles to the wing with CA. But you got to understand. The fit is really good and, just like you said, the fore and aft, I mean they’re locked in place because of the shape of the rib. Yeah, it’s holding it on, yeah, and so I yeah.

[00:10:59] Like I said, I lost a lot of concerns when I actually put those on and saw how tightly they fit. I mean, I

[00:11:04] Just I’m not worried about it pulling off anymore. Yeah, and I’m I’m really encouraged with how light yours is going to be. I think your airplane is going to be under 10 pounds for sure, I’m hoping.

[00:11:16] So yeah, because that’s what I was looking at, the like at the fuselage, not remember if we talked about this before. I don’t really have anything that’s going to go in the fuselage, except- sorry, except- for the elevator servo and the rudder servo, because everything else I think I’m going to mount the receiver batteries are already going to be in the wing, so it’s going to be a very light fuselage. Yes, and I’m, the heaviest part of this airplane is going to be the batteries. They’re a little over a pound a piece, which I’m not too thrilled about that, but we deal, yeah, but

[00:11:49] The rest, the rest of the airframe, just like you said, it’s very light. Yeah, especially the fuselage, because you’re not putting any plywood. There’s no reason to, except maybe the where the wing mounts. You might want to reinforce that with some plywood or something, but the blocks for sure you want to do a hard one, but overall, yeah, I think it’s going to be very light. Yeah, it’s coming.

[00:12:06] Along quite nicely. The only thing I still have to do that I’m concerned about with the wing, and I know you said that I probably don’t need to do anything, but I really want to do like a fiberglass wrap or something around that center spar because I want to make sure those wing sides you mean, yeah, what did?

[00:12:26] I say I do it again. Yeah, you did, it’s okay. I know what you meant and everyone else does too, but anyway,

[00:12:34] So I want to make sure that those wing halves are connected together. Well, yeah, so what do I need?

[00:12:40] To do so? Yeah, the center section, because, like, I’m actually there now so I need to know. Yeah, I got you. Well, you can do that a couple different ways I recommend in your, in your particular application, because it’s electric and not nitro, so you’re not going to have all that vibration that nitros give off. Just wrap it with a with a very narrow strip of fiberglass cloth and saturate that with thin CA, and that center section will be plenty strong. So where do you get that cloth stuff then?

[00:13:10] You can get it at almost any well-stocked hobby shop or you can come over to my house and I’ve got a lot of it that you can use. Oh, I like that price better. Yeah, but it doesn’t have to be fancy. The only part of it is it does leave kind of a rough finish, so it does require some filling and sanding and filling and sanding. You don’t want to sand through the cloth because that’s your strength.

[00:13:34] But so is that kind of like patching drywall then? Is that kind of what you’re doing, where you, if you have a hole in the drywall or something, you put that the mesh over it and then you mud over that and then you sand it to where you can’t see? Is that kind of kind of similar? Yeah, except in this.

[00:13:49] Case you won’t have. I mean there will be a, depending on how much time you spend on it, how much sanding, how much care you put into the application of the filler. Let’s just say not very much, so you’ll have a visible hump there, but if you smooth it out it’ll look. I mean fine, and or the. The alternative is to build a nice little center or a belly fairing to fit over that center section, to sort of smooth out that bottom.

[00:14:15] Part of the of the airframe. If that makes sense, that might not be a bad idea anyway, because I would kind of like the wing to sit and look like it’s part of the fuselage when it’s in there, because the way it’s designed now, yeah, it doesn’t look like it’s going to. No I plan on doing some.

[00:14:32] Smoothing on the bottom of the line to make it look just like what you’re talking about. Make it look like the wing is like inserted into the fuselage, yeah, as opposed to being mounted on the bottom of the.

[00:14:43] Usage yeah and so, but just thin CA really is all. Yes, you’d be surprised at how strong that stuff is.

[00:14:48] I mean you can use epoxy, which is what I’m going to use on mine. Epoxy it gives a little bit. I mean, even though you don’t think it does, it has a little give to it, so it’ll absorb those vibrations and stuff from the engines that mine’s going to produce. Yeah, but because yours is electric and it’s going to be very smooth, you don’t really have to worry about that. So that CA will be plenty strong and that stuff really, really, I mean since, yeah, how well it soaks into balsa, yeah, it wicks in well, now imagine it’s wicking through fiberglass and into the balls. I mean it’s plenty.

[00:15:20] Strong, yeah, yeah, that will reinforce the center, the wing center, joint, plenty, yeah, I was.

[00:15:26] Actually gluing something together the other day and it wicked all the way through the balsa onto my hand, under your hand. I glued my hand to it and of course that’s exactly when my wife walks downstairs and so she sees me with balsa hanging off my hand and she just kind of rolled her eyes.

[00:15:40] And kept walking. Oh, she rolled her eyes. Okay, I was like I figured she would giggle. I deserve it. Yeah, she might have under her breath, but probably yeah. Yeah, laurie’s seen that many times so she’s not fazed by. Yeah, and like, there’s probably balsa grains on my fingers now from gluing my nacelles together- oh, funny story. So I glued one of my nacelles backwards. What do you mean? So those, those, the, the plywood formers, yeah, are very similar looking. There’s a top and there’s a very obvious. Well,

[00:16:13] Not very obvious, but there’s an obvious top and bottom. And, yeah, I got one of them flipped backwards and glued it all together and I was just getting ready to put the ball. So I glued the.

[00:16:23] Plywood together. First they’re numbered though right and the number goes on the top so you can read.

[00:16:28] The number right. So I got to the point where I was getting ready to laminate the balsa on the outside and I couldn’t see the number. I’m like, where’s the oh no? So yeah, about 25 minutes worth of me painstaking with an X-Acto on each joint trying to break it loose, yeah, but I got it off and it’s cleaned.

[00:16:50] Up and you can’t even tell. I was gonna say: we don’t have any more plywood to cut right, because that’s why.

[00:16:55] I took so much time to. Otherwise I would have just called you and said, hey, can you cut me another number four, because it was the number four former? Well, I hope so, if that’s what you wanted me to cut. Yeah, so yeah, I thought you would enjoy that. That’s awesome. I almost didn’t tell you. Well, I appreciate the fact that you did yeah just to let. Hey, I make mistakes too. Everybody does yeah, so what’d?

[00:17:17] You get done. I was gonna say how many wings have I built. So let’s talk about who makes mistakes.

[00:17:21] It’s yeah, but all three of your wings looked really nice, okay. I mean, if you didn’t look down the trailing edges or for leading edges, they look good. If you didn’t, if you looked at them looked good, they would have been great. Look at them with your eyes closed, yeah, that way you don’t see all the problems. Put it okay, use your imagination. Yeah, I got it. Gosh, don’t be so judgy. I feel like

[00:17:44] We’re married. I’m looking at you with my judgy eyes, with disdain, disappointment. Wow, that’s.

[00:17:52] I can handle judging and be not disappointed. Disappointment- no, you got some stuff done though.

[00:17:57] Right a little bit. The nacelles are about ready to be glued on, and that’s about it, then you’re.

[00:18:03] Not going to glue them on because you’re confident that they will stay on. I didn’t say they would stay.

[00:18:08] On. I said they probably would stand. Actually, no, the point I was trying to make is they won’t pull off.

[00:18:13] Forward if I didn’t glue them on. That’s all I’m saying. I know I’m just, but no, yeah, your progress looks.

[00:18:20] Good. It looks minuscule but looks good, I would say right now. Oh, I did the elevator, by the way.

[00:18:27] You did and I was. I was looking at it. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, that’s okay right now. That’s okay right now. I would say that you and I, you still have a lead. I’d say you’re still in the lead yet you have done more work well, but I mean as far as completion level, I’d say you’re still ahead. Just yeah, because it’s not a competition, Tom. I don’t know, it’s always. I don’t know why you keep.

[00:18:54] Saying that I, when you and your wife are out this weekend, you guys kept saying how I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m in competition. I’m a compete- what’s the word? You are a competitive soul. There we go. Yeah, I don’t.

[00:19:04] See it, shall I tell the story? I don’t even know what story. Okay, so a while back, it’s been a few years ago, we learned at a card game and we and we call it 65. It’s just a simple card game. You start with three cards and threes are wild and then you have to make hands and things like that 65. That didn’t sound right. Whatever we call it, 64, 65, the card game, whatever it’s called. I don’t know what it’s called, but anyway, yeah, so the first, the first. I don’t know if it was the first hand or second hand or whatever. With each successive hand you get dealt more and more cards and that

[00:19:39] Number of cards that you’re dealt on, that hand is the wild card. So if you’re at the level of the game where you’re being dealt five cards, then that means fives are wild. So we’re playing the game and you, let’s say, we’re at five right and you, you pick up a five, or you have a five in your hand or whatever, and you discard it. You discarded a wild card and then, when you became aware that you discarded a wild card such that the next person could scoop it up- which I believe was me, which I

[00:20:11] Did you got very angry? Let’s not talk about cards, that’s not fair. Very angry I to the point where you got so angry, you threw your cards. I might have. No, there was no might and that happened twice. Okay.

[00:20:32] So I get my card playing skills from my mom and she does the same thing- very sore loser when it comes to cards, so she’s competitive also when it comes to cards. Yeah, no, it’s more when I do a stupid thing like, oh, fives are wild, now let me throw a five out, and you’re all like, oh hey, look at this, thanks, yeah, it got me a little bit upset. Yeah, so you get upset when you do stupid things. Okay, well, I don’t like where that looks like it’s going. This is not the tell stories, just a little.

[00:21:05] Nugget I’m putting back there in the file cabinet like I don’t. I mean, I do stupid things all the time.

[00:21:09] But I don’t get that upset. I don’t think my file cabinet is empty. I don’t remember stuff, so it’s.

[00:21:14] Okay, it’s fine, because I have a terrible memory too, and by well, you remember that story. Well that, because it’s very, very funny and laurie brings it up, so really it’s her fault that I remember it, otherwise I probably would have forgotten it, and that story came up on halloween, yeah. So, anyway, yeah, I would say that you, your build is ahead of mine, but just, but only just, like I, just once I get started on the fuselage, I feel like we’ll be neck and neck. Oh yeah, and I, I know you’ll probably do something this.

[00:21:47] Week to jump ahead of me only if you tell me that you’re working on yours, because I don’t want you to.

[00:21:51] Get ahead of mine. Well, realistically, I won’t be able to work on mine again, probably till friday, yeah, and I, and then I have to work this weekend. So, oh, do you? There probably won’t be any work getting done this weekend. Nice, good to know, right? Yeah, I can plan accordingly. Yeah, so you’ve got? You’ve got at least three days to get ahead of me. No, actually it feels like I have something going on this weekend.

[00:22:13] But I don’t know what. So I’m sure that I’m sure that’ll hit me last minute. So yeah, I was, I was.

[00:22:22] Admiring, if that’s the correct word, your the assembly of your horizontal stab. Admonishing. It looks great. Would you stop it? No, it looks great. Yeah, there’s no video side to this and nobody can see.

[00:22:37] Your eyes, which is probably good. No, it looks fine. I feel judged again. It looks fine, it really does.

[00:22:44] Yeah, is that all I mean? I know it does. I aim for fine, for yeah, it will be serviceable, it will do its.

[00:22:53] Job, perfect, serviceable. I mean you did an okay job on that. Keep on, keep on going, and that’s there’s.

[00:22:59] Nothing wrong with okay. Okay is okay. It’s not beautiful like mine, but it’s okay. Are you ever gonna see yours? No, and, to be honest, when you sheet yours, you’ll never see yours either. Yeah, but I’ll.

[00:23:14] Know, but you’ve said that about something else before on this plane. I don’t remember what it was. So at this point I don’t what was it. I’m not gonna tell you because you don’t remember. Yes, I do, what was it. I’m not gonna tell you. Then you don’t remember if you can’t prove to me that you.

[00:23:27] Remember, then you don’t remember. I think it had something to do with the, the joint at which your two panels, your wing panels, came together. I think I don’t remember. I like I really don’t remember, so it wasn’t that big a deal. I’m not gonna put a lot- I don’t remember either thought into it.

[00:23:46] This will work just fine. It will absolutely fly around the air twice and it’s gonna go get hung on.

[00:23:50] A shelf. Once you, once you sheet it, all of those gaps will be joined by balsa and it’ll be fine.

[00:23:59] Backhanded compliment. All of those gaps will be completely perfect when I’m exaggerating, okay, so

[00:24:07] It really doesn’t look bad. I mean, there’s there’s no once I once I really go, got over there and kind of really scrutinized it. It looks pretty good, honestly pretty good it does. It looks as good as mine.

[00:24:19] Oh, I don’t believe that because you had to show me the picture of yours and yeah, I did. I did take a.

[00:24:25] Picture of mine and I’ve taken a picture of yours now too, and yeah, I don’t know why. Like I said that I may make a comparison video- or not a video, but a comparison shot- to maybe put on the website or something or the forums- that’d be a good place for it. Well, it would have to be. The form is better. It would have to be the forum. I know because you’re the only one that can put pictures on the website.

[00:24:48] Only because you won’t learn. It’s not that I won’t learn, I’m okay. I’m when. I’m not going to go over this again, because it’s the same story over and over and I’m sure everybody’s tired of hearing it is.

[00:24:59] And, in case I want to know, I’m busy. I gotta ride my bike there. It is, oh, so anyway, that’s all the further. I made it on my airplane. Yep, and it’s okay. It looks good, though, because I’m still ahead of.

[00:25:13] You yep, and they’re, they are, they’re. They’re both now starting to look like well, yours has looked like a duelist for a while, but mine now finally starting to look like a duelist and I’m getting excited.

[00:25:24] So I’m actually getting to that point, too, where I want to get this done, because I want to see, first off, the differences in how they fly. I want to see the differences in weight. That’s what I’m.

[00:25:34] Most interested in. Yeah, mine’s gonna be way heavier than yours. Yeah, I mean it’s going to be.

[00:25:41] But it’s gonna be faster, I bet too. I don’t know about that. Well, yeah, one way to find out. We’ll see.

[00:25:47] Build it and find out. Well, I’m trying. Well, hurry up, okay, I will, you’re behind me, remember, that’s true.

[00:25:54] Yeah, so we’ll see how that goes. Give us a few more years, we’ll have it done.

[00:25:59] Right, no, not a few more years. Hopefully a few more months. At the rate we’re going, it’ll be a spring flight, yeah for sure. Well, in, even if we finish them in february, it’s gonna be too cold to go fly them. Anyway, probably, yeah, maybe, although if we can get them finished by january 1st, that could be our january 1st. Well, that’s a good addition. We always go out to the field january 1st, yeah, so what is that? Three months, two, no, that’s less than two months, less than two.

[00:26:32] Months. Yeah, it’s not gonna happen. I mean it’s not gonna happen. I’m gonna have some time off here on holidays. I’m not, and I get lots of stuff, like sometimes can get lots of stuff done when I’m home unsupervised, when I don’t have to ride my bike or go run or go run. All right, see, I don’t.

[00:26:50] Have that problem because I don’t exercise, so you should. I should not exercise, you are, no, you should.

[00:26:56] Exercise. It would be good for you. It would lengthen probably your life, which would is important to.

[00:27:04] Piper RC Plane Lab podcast. Let’s talk about rcr planes. Let’s not preach to me on, okay, exercising.

[00:27:14] Okay, done. I won’t say another word. It’s only because I care about you and I want to this. I want to do this.

[00:27:24] Podcast for a very long time with you, so you should actually sound like my wife. I won’t say another word and then the very next word out of your mouth is going right back to it. Okay, right, starting after.

[00:27:37] This next statement: maybe that’s what I should have said, maybe not, I don’t know. Are we starting now? Yeah, let’s start starting. So you’re not going to bring it up again. I’m not going to bring it up.

[00:27:47] Ever again tonight. Hey, ronnie, john, how’s it going? It’s jeff flight team member. Just have a suggestion for you: maybe an episode, a short one, dedicated just on some balsa build. I know you’ve talked about balsa and building and a lot of other things, but maybe making a single episode with just the tips and tricks and maybe some of the small idiosyncrasies that you might run into, that’d be great. I’m looking at building an ac410- ace410, that’s what it’s called. So, hey, great job you guys. Ron don’t.

[00:28:26] Give Tom a hard time. Respect your elders, thanks. Respect your. That’s what I got out of his voicemail. I don’t remember hearing that in there. Respect your elders. I don’t, I don’t like that. I don’t think so.

[00:28:40] Jeff, thank you for the suggestion and we’re going to do that right now. Yeah, we’re going.

[00:28:48] To talk about that very subject right now. Right, not? Not me exercising right to meow.

[00:28:56] Best movie ever? Yeah, well, top five. And for anybody that doesn’t know what we’re talking about: go ahead, because you brought it up. No, go ahead, super troopers. Yeah, okay, because I’ve never.

[00:29:10] Actually seen the movie, what? Yeah, I know right, I mean right all the time like at work, and I know it’s from that movie, but I have never seen the movie. Great movie, I’m sure it is okay building.

[00:29:25] With balsa. Tom yep, who’s never seen super troopers, never talk about it. So balsa, it’s a very lightweight.

[00:29:34] Wood. It is right that we that we use in most of our models, our meaning, yours and mine. Lots of people build bottles out of lots of different materials, but we’re talking about balsa. So balsa is native to south america. It’s a tree that grows very, very fast and it grows very, very light. I didn’t know we were talking about fauna and flora. Well, I’m getting to the point, oh, okay. So the point is, we like balsa because it’s light. It’s easily machined or sanded or cut. We can form it into.

[00:30:11] Lots of different shapes. Almost as easy to form into shapes as something like foam, even like hard blocks of foam, but it’s my favorite material to build with and that’s why we use it, and there’s lots of different. There’s lots of different grades, right? So balsa comes in. Basically three types of grades. There’s lots of different grades- three, basically three, and so there’s like a soft, medium and a hard, or grade a or b or c. However you want to slice it, there’s basically a place for.

[00:30:48] Each type of balsa right. So a grade or soft or contest grade or whatever that’s going to be the stuff that you’re going to use for shape, maybe not so much a leading edge, but something that’s going to. Maybe a filler or sheeting is good for soft balsa because it conforms to curves, because it’s soft. But stuff that I use the most is that stuff that falls kind of right in the middle, and right now, unfortunately, there’s kind of a shortage of good soft balsa. So most of the balsa

[00:31:21] You’re going to get nowadays is either going to be medium or hard. Hopefully that situation changes over time. And what caused that? Because I mean there was a reason for it. Well, I believe it was a combination of factors. There were. There were a couple of hurricanes that took out some stuff down in south america and I believe there were hard to believe, but I believe there were fires also.

[00:31:43] Yeah, so hit with both sides of it: fire and then water. Right, exactly so, but luckily for us.

[00:31:49] Like I said, balsa trees grow fast. I don’t think he said that yet. Hey, did I mention balsa trees grow fast, they grow fast. So anyway, there’s there’s kind of a shortage. So the good, the really good expensive soft stuff is hard to come by. But to be honest, we can get by with the medium grade stuff if how to the tips and tricks to cut it and form it and sand it and stuff. So the three grades, they have different uses. The hard stuff which is hard to cut and hard to form, that makes great formers ribs, things like that fuselage sides, if you get into the thicker.

[00:32:24] Stuff is spars, spars, spars. I know what spars are, yep, yep, spars. You do know what spars are. You like to call ribs spars, but that’s okay, that’s right, that’s correct, I concur. But anyway, each type of balsa has a kind of has a general rule of thumb use. So soft stuff, like I said, you’re not going to use it in areas where you need high strength or if you need something that’s dent resistant, because balsa can dent, as we all know, pretty easily actually, yes, have you seen my wing?

[00:32:55] Have you seen mine? Don’t look closely on the pictures. There’s lots of dents in my sheet. Don’t look from far away on mine because here’s a tip. Here’s a tip and trick. If you guys are looking for tips and tricks, if you’re building with balsa and you do, let’s say you do drop a. Let’s say you drop a screwdriver on your freshly sheeted wing. Don’t ask me how I know what happens, but it will usually leave a dent in the sheeting. And quickest way to fix that, honestly, hit it with a little bit of water and then iron it with your covering iron. Really, a dent pops right back up. You sand it smooth.

[00:33:29] Like it never happened. I’m gonna have to submerge mine into a bath and then put it in the oven and get out the autoclave and we’ll see what happens. Autoclave fancy. I used it, right, right, you did I.

[00:33:41] Think nice, I think an autoclave is the big oven thing that they sterilize instruments. Yeah, I thought so too. Yeah, but that’ll work. But yeah, there’s. So there’s a tip and trick, or there’s a tip for you: if you got a dent in your balsa, just soak it with a little bit of water and run your iron over. It’ll pop right back out and then you can sand it smooth with some 220 and like it never happened, never happened. So I’ll be sending my entire wing with 220 after soaking it. But anyway, soft balsa is good for areas where you need it to conform or you need it to make a shape. I use soft balsa whenever.

[00:34:14] I can for wing fillets, tail, the, where the vertical meets the horizontal. That little fillet in there, I’ll use it there because it doesn’t have to be strong. It just needs to provide a shape and something for my covering to stick to. Yeah, balsa cowls also. I’ve built up balsa cows out of soft balsa because it’s easy to shape, yeah. So things like that, where you don’t need a lot of strength, soft balsa is okay, but anything else you can get away with medium and even hard balsa. If you’re going to use, if you’re going to make your spars out of balsa, hard balsa is.

[00:34:47] The way to go. Yeah, so that’s good to know, but actually building with balsa right, which is what

[00:34:53] We were talking about. Well, I feel like if you’re going to build out of balsa, you probably ought to know at least a little bit about balsa, and that’s what I was trying to do- very, very good.

[00:35:07] So if you’re going to build with balsa, yes, I would think the best thing to do is buy a kit, right? Yeah, I would agree with that. For somebody that’s never built anything out of balsa before, a kit is going to be a great way, because you don’t have to worry about cutting your ribs. I almost did it first of all.

[00:35:25] You don’t need to worry about if the parts are going to fit or not. Yeah, and you don’t need to worry about if I, if I’ve drawn the parts correctly in the cad program and then cut them either by hand or with the laser, if you’ve got access to one or whatever. You don’t have to worry about that, because the manufacturer has already done all that for you and all the parts should fit together. Yeah,

[00:35:46] And especially if it’s a kit that’s been out there for a while, like my first kit that I built was the SIG cavalier. SIG kits go together very well- they do. At least the one I built did huge fan, but I can’t say much about building a bunch of them because I haven’t done it right. I will say, though, that I’m glad I did that before I did this duelist, because there’s been a lot of little things that I picked up, not having to worry about all the stuff that goes into doing one from plans.

[00:36:14] That it just goes together well and you get the gist of what you’re doing right. So, starting out with balsa, I think, like I said, some sort of SIG kit or a different kit, something like that goes together well, something that’s like a beginner type plane, or even the those I

[00:36:31] Think I’m going to mispronounce pronounce this, but forgive me if I do. But those gillows, kits, the little, the rubber band powered ones, yeah, yeah, even starting with something like that and putting one those together for the first time, we’ll actually teach you quite a bit about working with balsa.

[00:36:45] Yeah, and that’s a good idea. But if you want something that’s going to fly, right, exactly that really won’t do it. Well, okay, rubber band powered- sure, my- actually cody- put one of those together several years ago, before he did pretty much anything else with airplanes, and he did that all by himself. I mean, I didn’t help at all and I don’t even think he glued his fingers to the plane at all. I don’t know how he did that, wow, because I do that all the time. I do too. But yeah, that’s a good place to start, I guess. But if you’re wanting to build something that’s actually going to fly,

[00:37:17] Then, yeah, I would think some sort of- like I said- SIG kit or something like that gives you good basics, like basis of the basics, right, because they have great like instruction manuals that come with them. They walk you through step by step with pictures on what you need to do. Yeah, it comes with full sets of plans so you can kind of lay everything out and build on top of the plans. You don’t need special jigs, right. It’s just a good way to start. It is, and, like you said,

[00:37:43] That the instruction manual will usually- well, not usually- we’ll always have the instructions for building the airplane. Otherwise it’s not an instruction, but they usually have. I know SIG does a good job with adding little tips in there. Hey, if you want to, for instance, if you want a good fit of this piece here, here’s how you can accomplish that by whatever. But they provide that sort of information in there too, because they assume when you’re, let’s say, I’ll take a cadet, the SIG cadet been around for many, many years. Great flying airplane, it’s a good kit.

[00:38:18] But it’s a, it’s a kit. I mean, it’s a box of wood sticks that you cut to shape and glue together, and it’s the. In my opinion, it’s one of the perfect kits to start with. So, is that a stick built? Yeah, plain then. So, yeah you, you basically build the fuselage sides out of.

[00:38:36] Sticks, which means, as you actually lay these sticks of balsa out over the plans, you’re cutting each one to angle, to size right, whereas with the like solid side wood planes you actually get that piece.

[00:38:51] Cut for you already, right, okay, but yeah, you, you build two equal sides and then you set them square on the on the building surface and connect them with sticks that go between the two sides. It’s a great. It’s a great building, in my opinion. It’s a great building experience. And SIG assumes that this is your first kit, so they provide a lot of that information that most of us take for granted: how to how to miter a joint or how to how to get a good fitting glue joint and why that’s important. And I’m a big fan of the of the cadet series. Yeah, for

[00:39:26] That reason? Because they’re they. They teach a lot of people how to build kits, which is a lost.

[00:39:32] Art. I think, yeah, and don’t be scared of it. No, I mean there’s. I was very unsure of myself when I started my first kit, but just have fun with it and enjoy. Make a mistake, there’s usually a way to fix it. Yeah, and just enjoy the process. I mean, I can’t stress it enough that it’s just it’s fun. It’s meant to be fun. Have fun with it. Oh, it’s, it’s, it’s therapy for me. Yeah, don’t stress yourself out, because what if I do this wrong? Or what if it does, if you do it wrong? So what if it doesn’t fly?

[00:40:04] Well, so what you learned? And you do it better on your next one. Yeah, right, so don’t be scared. Yeah, so.

[00:40:11] Yeah, that would be the. The SIG cadet would be my suggestion for a good first kit and that’s a great

[00:40:16] Introduction to possibly, and what else would you need then to buy in order to put a kit together?

[00:40:23] Well, aside from the, the stuff to complete the airplane, like fuel, tank, engine wheels, prop, that kind of stuff- you’re going to need stuff to actually assemble, work with the balsa that comes in the box. So, at a minimum, I would say you’re going to need a sanding block and a knife and glue. I mean, at a minimum, you could probably build a SIG cadet out of just those three. Honestly, yeah. However, having said,

[00:40:55] That there are some tools that will make your life a lot easier and make the building experience a lot more enjoyable. So a good tool to have is the miter box made by several companies and what it is basically. It’s just like a carpenter’s miter box, only a lot smaller and designed for a hobby sized razor, saw or hacksaw looking tool, but it usually has miter joints in it so you can make a perfect 90 degree or 45 degree, or I think some of them even have combinations.

[00:41:26] Of the 33 and the other one 66, I guess it is. But anyway, that tool is very, very handy, especially when building a, a SIG kit, because so many of the joints or parts are built up out of quarter by three-eighths or a quarter inch square balsa. So you can use that box to make those nice, perfect miters so your joints fit together. And that’s important. You want your joints to fit together nicely because the a tight, fitting joint is stronger than a joint that has a big gap in it.

[00:41:54] Why are you looking at me and smiling when you say that I just because I know it’s going to get a.

[00:42:00] Reaction: oh, that’s really it. My joints are fine, they are, they are. Once they are sheeted, you’ll never see.

[00:42:07] Them, so they’ll be perfect. But I wish, I wish I would have had those sheeted before you came over.

[00:42:14] Save me a lot of grief. Yeah, and I won’t. Okay, so I won’t mention the other thing. And now I won’t.

[00:42:20] Mention that anymore. I promise I don’t care if you mention that I’m okay with my building skills.

[00:42:26] No, they’re fine, I think. Yeah, that’s what I mean. They’re fine. I aim for fine and I don’t want to go above the bar, I just want to be at fine. Okay, very defensive, you struck a nerve, oh sorry, no, I didn’t mean to, so anyway, yeah, the miter box and the associated. I call them razor saws, but because at the hobby scale they’re not a hacksaw, but they’re basically.

[00:42:51] A hacksaw looking very thin or not. A not a hacksaw, I’m sorry, hand saw. Yeah, very thin looking, yeah.

[00:42:59] Saw. But those two tools will definitely be high on the priority list to purchase and they’re not very expensive I think. I think excel makes a, a combo package that has the aluminum miter box and the saw and a saw handle, I think for 20 bucks, I think. And yeah, you will use that. If you stay in the hobby you will use that forever. They’d never really go dull because we’re only cutting.

[00:43:22] Balls with them. Well, the saws don’t go dull. But let me tell you, if you can get away with buying a metal miter box as opposed to a plastic one, do that. Yeah, that’s why I mentioned the excel one. Yeah, well, my, so I have the plastic one that I bought. That’s hobby grade down. I remember what brand it is, but it’s a name brand, man, I think that’s what I think. I think zona made the plastic ones.

[00:43:44] I think either way doesn’t matter. That didn’t sound right, oh no, okay, Ron is feverishly looking for his zona miter box made of plastic. It’s a zona, oh it is. Yeah, so they’re crap. Well, I thought I mean, yeah, but yeah, the plastic ones. If you can, if you can avoid those, yeah, because what happens?

[00:44:13] You cut through them eventually. Yeah, the saw will cut through them, and then your miter, where the actual hot or the sauce sits in it, that used to be a sixteenth of an inch thick ends up being, I don’t know, an eighth inch to three eighths of an inch thick, because you keep cutting through it and then your joints are not perfect. Nothing’s ever straight. There you go. I didn’t use it for that one, by the way, so I know what you’re going for, but no, I, I just free-handed it, okay, so anyway.

[00:44:41] Yeah, the miter box is high up on the list. Also high up on the list, in my opinion, is a good aluminum.

[00:44:48] Straight. I call it a. Yeah, thank you. That’s very handy to make, obviously straight cuts with an X-Acto knife, and you can also use that to guide your saw freehand if you’re if you’re using it, and then that, if you’re using it in that manner- yeah, I got my tongue twisted there. So a good, a good straight edge: either steel or aluminum. I like aluminum because they’re light and easy to move around. And so six inch, yep, and a 12 and a three foot, ideally the 12 inches. The 12 inch is

[00:45:21] Handy because a lot of our balls is sometimes between six and 12 inches, so to drag out the three foot long straight edge to cut eight inches is kind of silly. That’s what I use, especially since you brought yours over and I just kept it. Well, I mean to be fair, you have a lot more room to work with than I do, so are you giving it to me? I know we had no. I know we had that argument before. What I’m saying is: it’s easier for you to whip around a three foot. Yes, it is.

[00:45:54] Straight edge than it is for me to dig out my three. Anyway. The moral of the story is: have a have a straight edge that works for you. Multiple size, multiple sizes. A six inch is very handy because a lot of the times we’ll be working with detail type stuff. And yeah, six inches.

[00:46:10] Is plenty, the other thing I find interest, or interesting boy, the other thing I find handy.

[00:46:16] Is the six inch speed square? Yes, yep, yeah, and we mentioned that it was one of our tool of the weeks here. Well, that was of the week for a while back week. Yeah, whatever it is, but that not, and we didn’t.

[00:46:26] Talk about the six inch one. No, we did. When you talked about, was what? Three inches? Yeah, I think it’s.

[00:46:36] A square and that’s six inches, and I use that often too, I use mine too. And handy dandy, it comes with a six inch or 12 inch scale attached to it. You can whip out of there and use it as a 12 inch scale.

[00:46:47] Straight edge. What? Yeah, sections a six. Oh, I’m talking about the carpenter square, I’m sorry.

[00:46:53] You’re talking about the, the framing square, or whatever, whatever it’s called. So the one I’m talking about is the one that you can loosen the thing and slide the slide the scale inside it. Oh, those are handy.

[00:47:04] As well. What are those called? I don’t know. I should know. I’ve always called those a carpenter.

[00:47:09] Square but has the level in it in the handle, what I’m talking about. I know you’re talking, but it has a 12 inch scale that you can pull out of it and use it as, which also works as a straight edge. 12 Inch, straight edge, yeah. So two birds, one stone. So there you go, and chances are most folks probably already have one of those in their garage or shop or whatever. And if you don’t, you should, and if you don’t, you really should, yeah. Something else: if you’re going to get started building a balsa kit- let’s say, for example, a SIG cadet senior- you’re going to want a good quality.

[00:47:42] Sanding block or sanding apparatus, and those are really super easy to make yourself.

[00:47:48] I did not know that. Then enlighten me please. If you have spare two by fours or one by twos or anything that’s somewhat square, you can wrap it in sandpaper with the 3m 77, the tacky adhesive, the spray glue, and that makes a great sanding block, especially if you make a long one. If you cut, say, a two by four, a really good straight one, say 12 to 18 inches long, that’s great for sanding leading edges and things like that. Wrap some 60 grade around it. Yep, that’s actually a good idea because I

[00:48:23] Have the aluminum extrusion type sanding bar and just it’s nice, but it doesn’t seem to be wide enough for a lot of the long enough for, yeah, yeah, that too, I have the width that gets me more often, though, okay, it’s only like what inch wide sandpaper goes on it something and then it’s hard.

[00:48:40] To find the sandpaper roll sandpaper is 10 bucks and all that stuff. Well, you don’t have to use that. You can use any sandpaper and just glue it on with 3m 77 and then time to change it. Now you can heat.

[00:48:51] It up and it peels right off. Oh really, that’s how you get the. That’s how that’s cool. I didn’t know that made it kind of set free or give loose anything. It softens the adhesive so you can peel.

[00:49:02] It off. It does leave stuff behind sometimes, but that comes off with acetone. Well, it doesn’t matter if you’re putting more on. Yeah, because you want that surface to be nice and flat. And sometimes it’ll be rough if you leave the adhesive on because it won’t come off- all even I mean, or if it’s.

[00:49:18] Two by four, just get another two by four. Oh there you go. They’re cheap they are, but anyway a good.

[00:49:23] Quality sanding block is going to come in handy, especially when you’re building with some of the harder medium grade or hard grade balsa. You want a good, stiff, solid block. But I mean, there’s the blocks you can buy, like at lowe’s, from 3m, that are like the foam blocks, that feel like they’re really firm but as soon as you add pressure to them they conform. So if you have like a hard spot in the balsa or a glue joint that’s harder than the surrounding balsa, it’ll like skip over that and then you’ve got a hump in your finished project and that’s not. Yeah, no, that’s a pain I actually

[00:49:56] Use one of those on the leading edge on my wing, yeah, and then I had to stop using it and go to something else because it was not doing it right. Right now I’m not saying I don’t use those.

[00:50:07] Those balls or those foam blocks from 3m. I do have a ton of those at home and I do use them for like, for example, when I went to sheet my stab here, I pre-sanded the sheets with that block to get them nice and smooth. That’s one good use for that. But yeah, like a leading edge, just like you said, it’s not ideal, but it’s. If you’ve got a budget for it. It’s good to have a few of those laying around in different, in different grits. Yeah, they’re not very expensive: a couple bucks a.

[00:50:37] Piece maybe, yeah something. Probably two or three bucks, I don’t think they were very expensive, and they seem to last a good long time too, as long as you’re not sanding paint with them, yeah.

[00:50:45] Well, and balsa doesn’t really chew things up very much. Anyway, it’s so soft. So, yeah, not really yeah.

[00:50:51] That’s true. Stuff will last a good long time if all you’re sanding is balsa. Yeah, because it’s so.

[00:50:56] Soft when it comes to glues. You’re gonna need glue to put these together. Yep, I really have only used thin CA. I know there’s medium and thick, but I just have not come across a need for it, I guess. Okay, so am I doing something wrong? Should I be using that for other things, or what would you?

[00:51:13] Use. Well, I mean, you also use wood glue, which is my favorite adhesive, yeah, or yellow glue, or carpenters glue, whatever you want to call it. It’s an aliphatic resin. There you go again, but anyway, no, the different grades of CA just allow you to do different things. So if you have a good fitting glue joint, you can put the two pieces together, lick a little bit of thin CA in there, it really gets into the, gets into the wood and absorbs and you got a good joint. If you got a joint, let’s say, let’s say you can’t hold them together yourself and there’s no way to clamp them.

[00:51:48] And then also have a third hand to put the glue bottle there. In instances like that I’ll use medium CA, because medium doesn’t wick into the wood nearly as fast as thin CA. So I can run a bead of medium CA and then take the part, set it on the part I’m gluing it to and then hold it there for a few seconds. Done, oh okay, thick CA- same thing, but the thick CA will give you gap filling ability. So it will. It will not wick into the wood like thin and certainly or not like medium, but certainly not like then.

[00:52:20] So it’ll kind of stay liquid if you will in the gap and then it will cure and bridge the gap in your glue joint. So you’re saying I needed to use that on my stab? No, no, I don’t. I don’t think you needed thick CA anywhere in that construction. Then why are you making fun of me for it? Because it gets a.

[00:52:38] Rise out of you. Oh fine, I’ll just be monotone Ron from now on, just when it comes to your glue joints.

[00:52:44] Just my glue joints. That wasn’t monotone. That sounded like forest comp. Oh, I don’t know, why do that? I don’t either, but anyway, yeah, so three different adhesives that I like to use: I, I use CA, and, and usually all I have is thin and medium, just because medium does everything I need it to do, and if I have a really nasty gap I’ll use the next adhesive. I’m gonna talk about epoxy. Epoxy.

[00:53:11] Is a two-part adhesive that you mix together and then very, very strong stuff. I use it for things like firewalls, when I’m putting the firewall on the on the front of a fuselage. I use it for wing joints when gluing two wing panels together. Anywhere you need really, really strong.

[00:53:30] Joint I’ll use epoxy you also use. You taught me this. One watered down epoxy on the firewall to

[00:53:39] Make it fuel proof. Mm-hmm. Well, watered down is how you put it, but it’s it’s thin. Sorry that’s.

[00:53:47] What I meant to say. Thin down epoxy with alcohol. Yeah, so if you take epoxy, thin it down with a.

[00:53:52] Little isopropyl alcohol, it’ll make it into like a brushing consistency and then you can- yeah, you can- brush it on firewalls and anything that you need fuel-proofed. Yeah, so that’s what I did on the on the Telemaster, because fuel-proof paint is hard to come by these days and very expensive. Like I think there’s a company called- oh gosh, I can’t remember the name of it now- well, good, anyway, there’s a company out there, I think wings west maybe, whatever it is. They’re a hobby company and they produce paint and it’s great quality stuff and they produce it in a

[00:54:26] Bazillion different colors, great quality stuff, but it’s pricey. It’s for a quarter of it around.

[00:54:33] 30, 20, 30 Bucks. Well, and that’s. I mean, really, I guess that’s not too pricey. When you talk about what that’s true paint is at the store. Yeah, true, paint in general is expensive, but if you just need to do a firewall, that’s six square inches or six inches by six inches, bigger than six square inches, but anyway, yeah it’s. It’s so much easier just to whip up a little batch of that with the epoxy and brush it on after you paint it, and it looks pretty good, especially when it’s going to be hidden. By the way, right cow, exactly. Yeah, I’m not going for pretty, I’m going for a work.

[00:55:05] Horse over what it looks like? Yep, yep. And mostly, it’s about the fuel proofing. You want to make the airframe last a long time. And when we say fuel proofing, what do we? What do we talk about? Ron?

[00:55:15] Making it so it’s fuel proof. Why is that important? Because you don’t want to get your balsa.

[00:55:21] Soaked with fuel because, yeah, oil is in the fuel and once that soaks into the airframe, it weakens it. Yeah, and that’s not good for airframes that you plan on hanging on to forever and makes.

[00:55:35] The joints fail, makes the glue kind of, or makes the balsa kind of swell and get all.

[00:55:41] Messed up and then loses its strength. So, yeah, so you have epoxy, elmer’s or carpenter glue and CA. Those are the ones I like to use- and epoxy comes in different flavors. It comes in like a five minute, a 15 minute, a 30 minute, and all that means is how much time you get to work with it before it sets up.

[00:56:01] Yeah, and five minutes does not mean you have five minutes of work time. I mean it’s it’s pretty quick.

[00:56:06] It can be. Yeah, it depends on how you mix it. Like you can mix it hot, you put a little extra catalyst in it, it’ll it’ll kick off quicker. And something I’ve noticed with epoxy- and maybe this is a tip or a trick- if you mix it in large quantities it kicks off faster than if you mix it.

[00:56:23] In small quantities, because there’s more heat, exactly. So what I found out, too, I was- I don’t know what I was trying to epoxy, but I needed it to be a little bit thicker than what I had, and so to me it’s like: okay, well, this is going to kind of just kind of set up. It’s going to slowly start to cure and then, once it gets to be a little bit thicker, I’m going to use it. Right, it doesn’t work that way. It like goes from thin, thin, thin, thin to solid. Yeah, once it kicks off, yeah, it’s, it’s a quick process, and so I had to throw all that away and start over. Yeah, I don’t remember what I was using.

[00:56:55] That, for I wish I could remember. It doesn’t matter because, well, here’s something else. So the

[00:57:00] Comparing the different epoxies, the five minute epoxy is more brittle than the 30 minute epoxy. Oh really, I don’t know why that is. It probably has something to do with the- and I’m not trying to offend anyone, but with the retarder they put in there to slow the, the cure rate of the epoxy. But something about that makes that 30 minute epoxy slightly more resilient than the five minute epoxy. Five minute epoxy- like if you mix them up in a little mixing cup, let it set up for, let it really get good and cured over a couple of days, you can come back a few days later.

[00:57:35] And smack it with a hammer and it will just shatter. If you do the same experiment with like 30 minute,

[00:57:40] Epoxy, your hammer will bounce off of it. So here’s the other thing: if you’ve ever done like or use that epoxy stuff for, like, countertops and stuff, okay, that is very slow, right, hardening epoxy- and if you put stuff on it and sit it too long, it will actually deform and then when you remove it over time it will fill back in, flatten back out. So even the epoxy- that’s a finish, that’s sandable, that’s it’s a hard finish- it still has some liquidity to it, if that’s the word I like that, but it will still.

[00:58:13] Move and it will still kind of flow back to level yeah, even after it’s been taken out of.

[00:58:18] Level by having something sit on it right. And here’s something else: the longer you let epoxy sit in liquid form on the surface of, say, balsa or plywood, the more it will soak in and stronger your joint will be. So if you- if that makes sense, if you have time and you’re not impatient like me to use 30 minute epoxy and you can get it clamped up and held in place for that long- probably better to use that epoxy in general, just because it’s going to give you a better glue joint, because it’s going to soak in more because it’s liquid longer. Yeah, that makes sense.

[00:58:51] That makes sense. Yeah, it kind of gives it time to become part of and impregnate into that exactly.

[00:58:56] So I keep five minute and 30 minute epoxy. I don’t even mess around with the 15 minute.

[00:59:02] Yeah, I think I have the same, because it’s really not worth having three, I figure, if I’ve got 15.

[00:59:07] Minutes to wait for this to kick off. Then what’s another 30 for a stronger joint, another 15.. Exactly, yeah, not so well, right, yeah so, but yeah, those are the glues I like to use, and there’s other ones out there, like for the longest time- and this is now I’m old and I’ve been doing this a long time really- but even when I started, we were using CA and epoxy and wood glue, but before that, people were using stuff like segment and what’s the other one? Ambroid and there’s a few others and

[00:59:43] I honestly don’t know anything about those adhesives. I know they’re still out there. You can still buy them. I know SIG, I think it still sells segment, I think is what it was called and it was a cement that was on the label and what it actually is I couldn’t tell you, but if you still use that, maybe you could enlighten me what it is, what is it and how does it work. I don’t know. I mean it looks like, yeah, used to come in tubes, like you remember the testers model cement. Yeah, same idea, okay.

[01:00:15] But I don’t know what that is. Well, I mean, the testers cement is designed to melt the plastic together. You can’t melt. I didn’t realize that. Yeah, that’s, I think that’s how it works. Oh, I never had a lot.

[01:00:29] Of luck with that, because it always took so long and I was impatient. When I was a kid, I always used superglue when I built plastic models. I don’t think I ever completed a plastic model in my life to be.

[01:00:39] Honest with you. I started a few, but you didn’t. You didn’t build any airplane models like to completion. Come on, I would be so disappointed in you if you say, no sure, I sure did.

[01:00:50] I did a thousand of them in actuality. No, I don’t think I did. Yeah, I didn’t. I built a lot of them as a kid. I have one actually sitting back on my shelf back there that I haven’t done. It’s a tri-motor.

[01:01:01] Believe it or not. How about that reference material for our next project? There you go.

[01:01:06] Maybe that should be my first one, but I don’t know. We’ll see back to building. What else do?

[01:01:13] You need. You need to cover it. Well, yeah, you’re gonna need, need something to finish it. Like, once you have this beautiful airframe built and sanded smooth, you’re gonna have to cover it or paint it or something. Finish it right, you’re gonna have to do something before you paint it. Well, yeah, you’re gonna have to cover it. There you go, yeah, what are you gonna need to cover it? Ron, you’re gonna need a covering iron and covering- yeah, we know a little bit about covering a little. Yeah, you bought some.

[01:01:42] Recently. It’s not been recently, it’s been a while. What does that have to do with anything? Well, it’s.

[01:01:48] Covering. We’re talking about covering and I want to talk about the 60 roll of covering you bought and

[01:01:52] It’s still sitting there waiting for a project. It’s really neat, though it’s gonna be awesome when I get.

[01:01:58] To use it when I get to use it. So there’s different kinds of covering. Right, there’s the film type covering which leaves a nice glossy surface, unless you buy the matte finish stuff which leaves a nice matte finish, super easy to eat. Well, it’s easy, ish, it really is fairly easy compared to, yeah, dope and fabric and paint and the old, the old kind of the old way of doing stuff. But yeah, you’ve got, you’ve got the films, the plastic films, that both that iron on and then shrink. You have iron on fabric now also, both the kind that has got the adhesive on it and the kind that

[01:02:34] Requires you to paint an adhesive on the airframe, which I don’t think I would start with that. No, as a first build, it’s a lot of work. Yeah, covering in general is can be a lot of work. Covering is rewarding, though very rewarding because it brings- it brings this thing that you’ve built sort of to life and you can really see the shape when it’s finally, when all those open.

[01:02:58] Surfaces are covered over and, yeah, you get to design your own color scheme, you get to pick your accents. You get to actually make it your own airplane, right? Yeah, yeah, you can take a kit that.

[01:03:09] Maybe 50 other guys and girls have put together, but you can put your own spin on it when, when you get.

[01:03:15] To the covering and make it look nothing like anyone else’s. Yeah, that’s, that’s one very rewarding aspect of the hobby. Yeah, I agree, yeah, so yeah, you’re going to need some covering, whatever you choose. I’ve been experimenting with the china coat recently. Yeah, with good results. Yeah, I think.

[01:03:34] That’s what I’m going to buy for the, for the do list and by china code, if for anybody listening.

[01:03:38] That’s the stuff that you can get from hobby king for much less than some of the name brand stuff. It does have its quirks. I’ve I’ve noticed online anyway. I’ve noticed that some people using different batches from different purchases of the same color, the colors don’t match. I okay some of the higher, some of the name brand stuff. You’re probably not going to run into that problem, like I’ve never ran into that problem with monoco. I haven’t dealt too much.

[01:04:10] With ultra coat, but I’ve never ran into it with that either. But aside from that, so far the results have been promising for the, for the hobby king version. So just make sure you buy the amount that you need, right? I mean really well, there’s probably no guarantee of getting the same batch.

[01:04:26] Numbers, even then, no, but it’s going to be a lot closer. I mean, you’re gonna, you’re gonna kind of hope that it would be. You would think, but yeah, I mean, like I know, with metals and stuff, if you’re buying lots and stuff and you want something to match, you have to buy from the same lot, just to be sure. Yeah, even in industrial applications, colors are not going to match. Yeah, so that part really.

[01:04:46] Doesn’t bother me that much. Okay, some of the reviews I’ve read says that the some of the colors fade pretty dramatically, I guess, over time. I mean to, to me that’s not that big of an issue because my airplanes don’t spend a lot of time outside, yeah, yeah, I mean I get that so and I don’t store them right next to a window. I mean they’re stored in kind of a dungeon there in my basement, so that’s not a big concern of mine. Well, but I guess I mean that’s something to take into.

[01:05:19] Consideration, though: if you’re going to be doing it and if it’s going to be a plane you want to keep for a long time, right, yeah, so I mean, that’s good to know and I still don’t mind trying that, I think, with the dualist, because I’ve not used it before, and I think this is a good airplane to try it on. Really, yeah, it’s not. It’s not 60 bucks a roll, so good on that. Yeah, probably what I’m going.

[01:05:42] To use is for the dualist anyway, it’s just covering. I have- oh yeah, because you have like 730 rolls. I think I have enough of the colors that I want to go with to go ahead and cover it, but if I didn’t, I would. I would be using the stuff from hobby king for sure. Yeah, depending on what colors are in stock. Yeah, because that’s the other issue. I probably ought to look and see what

[01:06:04] They have now and just kind of keep my eyes open for when they have it in stock. Yeah, so that I can do it, or else I will be buying MonoKote and just doing it that way. Yeah, so it’s part of it.

[01:06:15] I guess. So yeah, along with the covering that you choose. Hopefully you’re going to choose an iron on, because that would make the next tool very important. You’re going to need an iron, like you.

[01:06:26] Said: and not like an iron for your clothes, no, an actual covering iron covering and watch what kind you get. So I’ve never used any of the hobby king covering irons. I don’t know if they’re any good, honestly, so I can’t speak for that one. You turned me on to the, the coverite covering iron that is no longer available, I know, but it’s such a nice iron- it really is I, I it’s the best iron I have, so much so that I bought another one as a spare. Yeah, because now you can’t find them. They’re hard.

[01:06:59] To find if you, they do pop up from time to time on ebay and other places, but yeah, unfortunately they’re not in production. That I am aware of. Yeah, if you find one, buy it. That’s my- usually my, hint to you. Yeah, I think they’re usually what, about 40 bucks or so, maybe a little bit 30, I think, is what I paid for.

[01:07:15] Mine all right, but I worth it. Yeah, absolutely, because that’s really not much more expensive than like the hangar nine one, right? So I have the hangar nine one also, yeah, and I know we talked about before. But problem with that one is that you literally have, from the time the thermostat turns on to the time it turns off, 40 degree difference. Yeah, that, and that’s significant, especially.

[01:07:38] If you’re going to use, if you’re using ultra coat which uses the multi-temp technology. Yeah, 40 difference makes- or 40 degrees makes- a big difference when you’re using ultra coat, yeah, so, yeah, that’s something you want to be aware of, no matter which iron you choose, and I highly recommend either getting a non-contact thermometer or the cool little cover right thing which also is no longer available- that you can- has a little dial you set right on the shoe of the iron. It’ll tell you it derades it directly. But you need to know the temperature that your iron is at.

[01:08:13] Yeah, it’s like the old thermostats, if you ever took them apart, the, the analog thermostats that just have the wire, the big coil spring inside. Yeah, that’s all, it is right. And it just as it turns. It turns to the temperature it’s at and it’s very accurate, good. And so with the, with that 21st century when I think I had like a six degree swing. So if you set it for I don’t know whatever temperature you set it for, it would be like three under, three over. Was this way good? So

[01:08:44] It, it averaged out to be what you had it set at. So, yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s very accurate. And when you’re so, if you don’t realize that’s going on- which I never realized it until I got the thermometer and stuff, like I. So I had the non-contact thermometer that I would use, like with the, the, the hanger nine one, I would get to where I needed it, check it, and then, after it was warmed up, I was like, okay, I’m good, I don’t need to keep checking it. I would have problems at times to where it would stick. Other times it wouldn’t stick, and now I know why. You’d have some times where it.

[01:09:17] Would start to shrink a little bit and other times where it wouldn’t, yeah, because it’s hot.

[01:09:20] And then it’s cold, and then it’s hot and it’s cold. 40 Degrees is a big difference for that. So

[01:09:26] When I started using this other iron, it started working much better right, and I’m I’m happier with that.

[01:09:30] Oh, you doing okay. Yeah, good, something else I would recommend for your iron. Whichever iron you choose, usually the manufacturer will make a sock. It’s a fabric cover that fits over the shoe. I highly recommend those because sometimes in a like in my workspace, it’s dirty, there’s balsa dust flying around and sanding grit from my sanding blocks or whatever. When that stuff gets on the surface of the monica or whatever film you’re using and you run over that with a, with an iron, it will it’ll.

[01:10:03] Leave scratches and stuff on your shiny new surface. So a sock will help prevent that and also makes it glide easily on the on the surface. So I highly recommend a sock if you and the other thing you can.

[01:10:15] Find it too, by the way, is when you get to those cut edges, when you go to put those down. A lot of times you’re going to get some of that, the adhesive that melts and kind of comes out, and so you’re going to have smears and smudges of that color, especially if you’re doing like a darker color, which you always really should be going light to dark just for high contrast, yeah, but especially like blacks and stuff you can well. I guess the blue is where I really noticed it. When I was ironing the edge of the blue going over the red that you could see a lot of that blue was coming out. Don’t worry about it, yeah, don’t sweat it, not at all. I the first time it happened to me I was like

[01:10:49] I ruined everything, but, yeah, you easily can take it off with that. Oh, what’s it called the?

[01:10:57] Come on, help me out what debonder works well for that? What’s the? Oh? No, that’s not what I was talking.

[01:11:04] About, though. Acetone? No, that’s not that either. Trim solvent, that’s it, thank you. Trim solvent is what I use. Lighter fluid also works anything. I think it’s like an acetone type thing, is that I think?

[01:11:17] Kind of what it is: careful with acetone, because acetone around certain plastics deforms it. But yeah, CA debonder is what I use most. I didn’t know. Yeah, it’s very, it’s very easy on the surrounding surfaces and no, it won’t debond your cured CA joints. That’s a common misconception. Not without a lot of work, I should say. I was gonna say you might want to fix that, because it will. It will eventually with a lot of work. But just wiping off some monaco with a little well, rag saturated with.

[01:11:44] It’s not gonna hurt, and wiping off monaco with that is not actually getting it down onto the wood exactly, so that’s not a concern, yep, but yeah, so I use the, the trim solvent stuff, and that does a.

[01:11:55] Good job. It does a very good job. That stuff’s really expensive, though, really the. Are you talking about the top flight trim solvent? Yeah, I think last time I saw the little glass jar of it. Yeah, if you can find one that’s not half evaporated, because I don’t think they make it anymore, but there’s still a lot of it out in the shops. I bought mine like six years ago, so, yeah, I don’t remember like mine. Well, I’ve had a long time, but I remember like the first year I got it, half of it was like evaporated because I either the seal wasn’t good on the lid but yeah, evaporates really fast. But

[01:12:26] Anyway, yeah, I think it was like 12 or something for that little glass jar of it. I mean it works great. But

[01:12:33] At the same time. That’s last. I mean, it lasts forever. You really don’t. You don’t use much of.

[01:12:39] It. That’s true, so that one doesn’t take much. You don’t have to wash the airplane and you just take a paper towel, fold it over, dip it, or just to put it over the hole and kind of shake it, and that’s usually enough to wipe off whatever. Quite a bit, yeah. So that’s all I do with.

[01:12:54] That and that works well. Yeah and yeah, one bottle, like I said, it’s about six years old and it’s- I still haven’t gone through very much of it- and it’s one of the. It’s the brown bottle, so it doesn’t let the light go through, and all that kind of stuff and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[01:13:08] It’s technical and it works well, so it does something I forgot to mention. Since we’re going to be covering and you want nice crisp edges of your covering, you’re going to need those two tools that you used for building. Also, you’re going to need a straight edge and a sharp X-Acto knife and I recommend buying those 100 blade packs- yep of number 11 blades for your knife handle, whatever you’re using, because you’re going to go through a few of them on just a covering job, several covering.

[01:13:39] Because through them it really does it’s. It’s hard on those blades for some reason.

[01:13:43] But, yeah, keep a good supply of those number 11 blades. Yeah, and the sharper they are, the better they cut. That’s true, they won’t tear. Yep, and you want to know what the most important tool of all is, especially when it comes to covering your mind: patience. Patience isn’t a tool, it is a tool. It’s not a tool. You’re a tool, maybe no, but patience, because covering is, it takes. It takes practice. Very few people. I shouldn’t say it that way. Covering is something that doesn’t come natural to.

[01:14:18] A lot of folks. I remember the first time I covered an airplane on my own nightmare disaster. I hated covering really like the first, yeah, the first few airplanes until I got kind of my own techniques and stuff figured out. Yeah, covering was a was a real challenge and it as a kid I didn’t have a lot of patience, not like I do now. As a kid I didn’t either- and but

[01:14:47] Like I always thought I did a fairly decent job with things. And then you come over and

[01:14:52] Make me feel as though I don’t so well. I’m not, I don’t well. I feel bad now because that’s not my intent. My intent is the, just the banter. I’m joking, right. I mean, even if you don’t think I do well, I don’t want to hurt anybody’s. Even if you don’t think I do a good.

[01:15:09] Job. I don’t care. Oh no, I think you’re doing a great job. I take that back. I do care a little bit. Yeah, I think it’s a great job. Okay, I’m not asking for compliments, I’m just saying: okay, you’re critical, I’m sorry, don’t be sorry. Be more critical. I’m trying to make you a better builder. That’s how you learn, right, criticize me, but just in a little nicer way at times. Okay, no, so building with balsa, that’s- that’s kind of the gist of it. I mean, that’s not really getting deep down into it, right? Yeah, we’ve only scratched the surface, really. Maybe one day we’ll do a deep dive in.

[01:15:40] The building with balsa? I don’t know. It kind of depends on. Yeah, we’ve had a few survey submissions.

[01:15:45] That sort of indicated that, yeah, somebody might be interested in and really getting the down.

[01:15:50] And dirty on building a balsa kit, but hard to do just with audio. So I mean, that’s, that’s kind of the. The crutch we’re working with is it’s. It’s hard to describe things very well, but yeah, we’ll do our best and maybe one of these days, like I said, we’ll do a really deep dive into it. But yeah, this is, this is just kind of a 10-foot view looking down on how you do things. But

[01:16:14] Takeaways: don’t, don’t be afraid of balsa. No, no, not at all it’s. It’s very rewarding it is, I believe, to build an airplane out of balsa. You see that finished product actually out there on the in the.

[01:16:27] Grass on the flight line flying it’s, it’s. And when you build them and actually build them out of balsa, cover them well, it’s gonna last. If you don’t crash it’s gonna last, and I say that just because that will end this. It happens quickly times, but they will last a long time. I mean, it’s not like it’s a plane that you’re gonna fly a couple times and then it’s gonna fall apart. So it is a little bit more expensive- I understand that fully- than building with other.

[01:16:56] Materials right, but they will last a long time. Yeah, well, I mean, perfect example, my, my old contender, that’s the oldest plane I have and that thing has got to be at least 20 years old. Yeah, 15 for sure. Still flies well, it flies awesome and it still looks good, but it’s on its third covering job, and but that speaks for the longevity of these things, though. I mean, the airframe itself is still, yeah, as solid as it was the day I built it. Well, look at the Telemaster. That’s.

[01:17:26] Probably what 25 or 30 years. Yeah, yeah, and that was built by Hobby Lobby, or, yeah, people who worked for Hobby Lobby, well, right, but yeah, we did very little repair work to any of the joints. Yeah, I mean, repair work we did was damage from somebody else. Yeah, right, and you can’t really. The airframe is.

[01:17:44] Very solid. Yeah, you can’t blame the, the kit maker, for that, because that’s nothing they did, that’s right.

[01:17:49] So yeah, that’s, that’s a real. Like you said, that’s a quick overview- well, not so quick, I guess- but it’s an overview of building with pulsa and it’s so much fun, okay. Well, do you have anything?

[01:18:03] Else that you want to talk about? No, I’m. I think that does it for me all right. Well, everybody reach out to us. If you have any questions or anything, fill out our listener survey. We’re still wanting to get more responses on that, to kind of see what you think of us. Yes, help us, help you there.

[01:18:21] You go and also, hey, if, if you got something that you’re thankful for, be thinking about thanksgiving, and if you want to contact us and let us know what that is, we’d love to talk about it on, maybe.

[01:18:32] A thanksgiving special. Yeah, I forgot about that good idea. All right, sometimes it happens sometimes. All right until next time. I’m Ron and I’m Tom. Good night. Good night, hope you enjoyed this episode of.

[01:18:44] The RC Plane Lab podcast for topic suggestions, to ask questions or to give anything back. Connect with us at rcplanelab.com or email us direct at either Ron at rcplanelab.com or Tom at rcplanelab.com. You can also text us or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846. Please subscribe, rate and review us on your favorite podcast app until next time. May your landings be gentle.