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Join us for the main discussion, practical takeaways, and stories from this episode of RC Plane Lab.

In this episode of RC Plane Lab, Ron and Tom talk about the different glues and where to use them, homemade tools, and answer some more listener questions.

Episode 58 Transcript

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability. Timestamps are retained.

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[0:00] Hello everyone, welcome to RC Plane Lab. I'm Ron. And I'm Tom. Today we're going to be talking about glues and where to use them, and also some tools that you can make on your own that you don't have to buy.

[0:15] Exactly. First though, I want to remind you guys, we have a listener survey on our website. We've had several of you fill them out and we greatly appreciate it. But we want more. Yeah. A lot of the stuff that we actually talk about comes right from the surveys that you guys fill out, which we appreciate and it gives us stuff to talk about and you guys to listen to. So yeah. Yeah. Do us a favor and

[0:34] fill those out if you haven't already. And you can fill it out again if you've already filled it out. And if you have show topic ideas or questions or anything like that, feel free to reach out and to reach out to us in the myriad of ways that are possible. Tom, how do you reach out to us? Oh, gosh. Well, you can get a hold of us on our website. You can get a hold of us via voicemail, which is the number is, I get that number, but it's on the website. Here you go, 818-351-9846.

[1:00] Yep. You can also leave us a text at that number. 818-351-9846. Yep. You can also leave us a text at that number. 818-351-9846. You can get a hold of us via email, tom at rcplanelab.com or ron at rcplanelab.com. Yeah, Tom's goes to him. Ron comes to me. You can also go to YouTube. We're on YouTube now, and you can drop us a comment on any of the videos. You can get a hold of us that way.

[1:28] Lots of ways to get a hold of us and give us your ideas, which we appreciate. Yeah. So you're ready to get started? So first we're going to talk about the types of glues that we use in the hobby. We've kind of covered them briefly here and kind of there, but we've never really devoted like a real quality block of time to them. I don't know if I call this quality,

[1:44] but we'll see how it turns out. what I mean? It's a block of time to them. I don't know if I call this quality, but we'll see how it turns out. But I mean, what I mean? It's a block of time that we're devoting only to, in this case, the glues that we use. So we'll just get right into it. First thing, probably the most common glue that you're going to use in the balsa building hobby is CA, which is short for, I'm going to have a hard time pronouncing this one. Yeah.

[2:08] Ron's going to make fun of me. I will. But cyanoacrylate, I think. Cyanoacrylate? Yep. There we go. Perfect. Okay. But it's basically superglue. It's essentially the same type of stuff that you buy in the stores. It's marketed under crazy glue or superglue or or whatever but it's the same type of adhesive

[2:33] nice thing about it is it bonds skin instantly quicker than you can imagine yeah so it's a glue that you want to you want to use caution with you don't obviously want to glue your fingers together

[2:37] which we all have done that many times yeah but that's's probably one of the most common. And it's a great glue to use if you want to get some parts locked together quickly. The downside of that is it does it instantly. So if you get it wrong the first time, you have to somehow get them apart, which they make a product for that as well. And it's called De-Bonder. Which is what you want because it's the opposite of bonding

[3:05] exactly so it debonds and it works well on skin it does yeah it it will debond it with a little bit of work but it will debond ca and break down the the bond that that it creates instantly it takes it's instant it takes much longer to debond than it does to bond yeah right it really does it takes a lot of work to get that stuff to work yeah it's essentially just acetone i think if you've ever oh is it

[3:32] if you've ever like gotten it on your hand and kind of smell it it smells a lot like acetone but anyway that's ca and it comes in different thicknesses there's a thin which is all it's thin as water and it goes everywhere if you're not careful. Easy to spill. Yeah. And then there's a medium, which is kind of a, they call it a gap filling. So it's got like a kind of a gel consistency to it. And then there's- I thought the thick was the gap filling. No?

[3:58] Well, the thick, I mean, you could probably use them both depending on the gap, I guess, how big the gap is. But then there's a thick ca also designed for less than perfect fitting glue joints yeah and then there's also foam safe ca which is a ca that's been developed to be safe with foam so regular ca if you use it on your phone will attack foam so make sure you're using foam safe ca if you're gluing that that type of material

[4:25] together yeah it will make the foam just disintegrate a lot like gasoline does yeah i've told that story before it's not fun they also there's also some other kind of specialized type cas or ca out there with rubber kind of particles mixed in with it that's designed for to kind of stay flexible after it's cured. We used to use that back in the RC car days to glue tires to the wheels. But anyway, the most common types, thin, medium, and thick, and then the foam safe are the ones

[4:55] you're going to run into the most and probably going to use the most. I use thin CA a lot for not just hobby-related items, but I use it around the house too. It also, since it glues skin together so well, if you cut your hand open, it also makes a great adhesive to glue your skin back together to keep it from bleeding. Oh, I don't know about that. I've done it many times. I can't. Oh, that just makes me nauseous thinking about it. I don't handle blood very well. Yeah.

[5:20] Well, I wouldn't use it in the place of stitches, but in a pinch. Well, I guess when you go in, like if you have a cut and you go into the hospital, sometimes they do just glue it back together. I don't know what they use. The CA, that's actually what it was developed for. I think it was a product called Dermabond, I think. That actually was used in, I think, World War II. It was developed for that to glue together wounds to keep people from bleeding to death. Wow. So, yeah.

[5:47] I didn't know that. Yep. That's where its roots are located. Okay. The nice thing, though, about the thin CA is that it does wick into the balsa. It does. And it makes a really strong joint, as long as it's a closed joint. Yeah, it's got to be a good fitting joint. Otherwise, it doesn't do its job properly. And usually, like if you glue two pieces of balsa together with CA and then break the pieces apart, the wood is what breaks, not the glue joint. So it's pretty tough stuff. Yeah,

[6:21] it kind of impregnates itself inside of that ball, so it just really makes it strong. Yep, yep. Yeah. So the next type of adhesive that we'll talk about is epoxy. So epoxy is a two-part adhesive that you mix a certain part of A to a certain part of B, mix them together. Usually 50-50. Yeah, in most cases. I've seen some three-to-ones out there. Yeah. Not as common anymore, just because they're not convenient because you don't mix them equally. But they come in different viscosities,

[6:52] kind of like CA. They come in, maybe not so much viscosities, but the allowed time you have to work with it. So there's five minute, 10 minute, 15 minute. The open time. Yeah. There's 30 minute epoxy out there. And what they're referring to is the amount of working time that you have to work with it before it kicks off or starts to cure and get hard. And that's not set in stone.

[7:17] No, it's not. Sometimes you have to remember that the more of it you mix up, usually the faster it kicks off because it's a thermodynamic process. Exothermic. Exothermic process. Thank you. So the more heat it builds, the faster it kicks off. And the more volume of that stuff you have, the more heat it makes. So when you mix— And the more heat it holds on to. Right. Like it doesn't actually—it's not able to cool itself down, so yeah, it goes quicker.

[7:46] Yeah, so if you mix up a large quantity of that, be prepared to work a little bit faster than you think you need to, given its advertised pot life time. Mostly I use five-minute epoxy because I, I sometimes am clamping stuff together with my fingers, and I don't want to hold on to it for 30 minutes while I wait for it to cure. Five-minute is probably what I use the most. I use the 30-minute epoxy for doing things like gluing wing halves together, stuff like that. So that's epoxy.

[8:20] And there's a difference in five-minute and 30-minute also, and we're not going to get into why, but how hard it is, I guess, and how brittle it is. Right. So the slower it sets up, the less brittle it's going to be. Exactly. So a 5-minute epoxy is going to be more brittle. Like if you smack it on the ground or something, it's more likely to break the joint than a 30-minute would be. Exactly. Yep. Yeah, and a 30- would be. Exactly. Yep. Yeah.

[8:47] And a 30 minute will actually have some flexibility to it, just like you mentioned. So, yeah. Yeah. Nice wide range. You can pick the one that suits your application, which we'll talk about here in a little bit. And there's like 15 minute also. I think there's 10 minute, if I remember right, I think. Yeah. I think I've seen before. I think whatever time you want to work with, there's probably one out there for you yeah pretty much all I keep though and I don't

[9:08] know about you but all I keep is five and thirty that's all I that's all I keep in my I don't yeah I don't see a reason to have any extras in any other time frame so I figure if I have 15 minutes to work with the adhesive I've probably got also 30 minutes and if 30 minutes adhesive provides a better bond or a stronger bond than 15-minute, well, then I've got 15 extra minutes to wait.

[9:30] And we'll talk later about where to use the different types of these glues that we're talking about. So don't get too concerned about, well, where are we supposed to use them? Because we'll go over that in a minute. We're going to tell you that here in just a few minutes. So the next adhesive I want to talk about is my favorite aliphatic resin and not just because i like saying the word it's carpenter's

[9:51] glue so it's basically yellow glue a derivative of el's what i learned to to build with and if if you're patient you can you can get some really really quality good looking airframes that that is a shame to cover up with monocoat or fiberglass when you're done when you're done with it and you've used aliphatic resin you don't have any of the discoloration of the ball so that it can sometimes happen with CA and you don't have the mess of epoxy.

[10:31] And it doesn't require a lot of glue to get a really, really tight fitting or a good fitting, strong glue joint. A little of this stuff goes a long way. And there are different kinds out there that you, when I was building the dualist, you yelled at me for using one of them. I don't remember what the difference was, but what was it? Well, some of the Titebond, well, the Titebond brand has several different

[10:56] types of glue. I just stick with, I think it's Titebond 2, I think, which is their standard carpenter's glue. Some of the other ones, they have additives in them to keep them flexible or to give them waterproofing or for use in specific areas. Just stick to the standard Titebond. I think it's Titebond 2 is what I use. But Sigbond makes the same thing. I think Great Plains, you can still buy Great Plains aliphatic resin, I think. But, yeah, there's different types

[11:26] out there for specific uses. Just stick to the basic standard carpenter's glue. No frills. Yeah, exactly. No frills. You don't need any special additives or anything like that. And boy, does it do a good job with balsa because it kind of soaks in like CA does, and then it impregnates the wood. And between those two pieces of wood, you're not going to break them together at the glue joint. And I think last time I bought it, I bought a gallon for 20 bucks. It's cheap.

[11:50] Yeah, it's not very expensive at all. It does require patience because it doesn't glue instantly like CA does. But that's good sometimes if you want to be able to get your joints lined up just the way you want them. Right. And on most builds, I mean, to be honest, I'm working on several different components simultaneously. So, let's say I've glued some ribs together with the Titebond. While that's setting up, I'm over here working on the fuselage, putting formers together

[12:15] or something like that. So there's usually something you can accomplish while you're waiting patiently for your Titebond to cure. But that's my favorite. I like it. It makes really nice, strong joints. And a lot of times it doesn't take a long time to dry anyway. No, it really doesn't. If you use the right amount of glue, you're 10, 15 minutes, and you're able to move it around and move on to the next step. True, especially if your joints are well-fitting. Well-fitting, yeah.

[12:41] And then, so like the last adhesive we'll talk about is Gorilla Glue. That's kind of new to the scene. I don't have a lot of experience with it other than sheeting foam core wings with it. But I've noticed that some people are doing other laminations. they'll laminate eighth inch balls of sheet together and run the grain different directions to make their own types of plywood for specific uses. So this is kind of new.

[13:07] I think it's still kind of, people are still sort of experimenting with it and getting used to how it works. I know that it expands a little bit. So you have to be mindful of that. If you need those parts to stay in a certain alignment, you have to factor in the fact that this glue will sort of expand in the joint potentially moving your parts out of alignment so normally with any kind of expanding

[13:31] glue like that usually it's like a what's what i'm looking for it's a water activated so it's the moisture in the air that activates the glue you can speed it up by spraying it with some water before you actually put the joints together. Exactly right. And then with this type of glue, if you ever use it, it has to be clamped. Oh, absolutely. I mean, like, there's no way getting around it, because if not, it will move around

[13:54] and it will upset you when you come back and look at your part that's nowhere near where it's supposed to be. Yeah. And like I said, mostly I've seen it used for sheeting and other types of laminations like that. For gluing sticks together and stuff, I don't think, generally speaking, I don't think folks are using it for that. But it is an adhesive that when used properly, it does a really good job actually on sheeting foam core wings.

[14:23] And speaking of sheeting wings, I forgot to mention this about the aliphatic resin. It's a little trick I learned here quite some time ago. I saw it on RC groups, and I've seen other people use it here lately as well. If you're sheeting a built-up wing like our dualist wings, for example, and you want to use aliphatic resin, but you're not sure if you're going to be able to get the glue on in time and then the sheeting on in time and get the clamps on in time before

[14:45] the glue starts setting up, what you can do is lay the aliphatic resin on the tops of all the ribs and spars and any other structure that the sheeting is going to be stuck to. Lay your sheeting on top of it, kind of move it around just a little bit to get that glue transferred onto the sheeting and then pull the sheeting off. let that aliphatic resin kind of dry for 20 minutes or so and then here's the real trick part you can actually iron it on you take

[15:12] the sheeting lay it back on and then the heat application of an iron will reactivate the glue as long as it's not fully cured i mean we're talking like 20 minutes 20 to 30 minutes and you're in the safe zone and you can actually iron your sheeting on and it sticks instantly with the iron, which is kind of a neat trick, especially if you're sheeting a large built up wing. That is a good idea, actually. Yeah, I forgot to, I'm glad I remembered to mention that

[15:36] because that's a great use, and you can use that technique on anything that you're sheeting with sheeted bed balsa over structure i've tried that sometime that's interesting it works yeah i used it on on my dualist there's oh i didn't obviously because i didn't know about it yeah well you back and i bagged yours yeah which is also great yeah is there a certain temperature hot i mean just just anything

[16:02] that's hot enough to transfer that heat through the ball so down to the glue. I think I use my monocoat setting on my iron, which is hot. So as hot as it will go. Yeah, 300-ish, I think, is where my monocoat setting is. So, yeah, I just wanted to mention that. Another great use for my favorite adhesive, aliphatic resin. Not just because I like saying it. So where do we use them? Oh, that's a good question. You can take a drink if you want, go on.

[16:28] I didn't mean to catch you off guard there. Ah, dry pipes. So for balsa to balsa, you can use any of those adhesives. My favorite, again, is aliphatic resin, but all of those adhesives work great for gluing balsa to balsa, with the exception maybe of Gorilla Glue, depending on the application. It's just how patient you are and how good your joints fit. If they're really great fitting joints, man, I highly recommend aliphatic

[16:57] resin. So for balsa to balsa, yep, you can work with any of those adhesives. And you spread, like you would just spread them on with, like with what, a paintbrush or something if you need to? So aliphatic resin, yeah, you can spread it with a paintbrush. They make brushes. You have one, I think. It has little rubber nubs on it. You can use that to spread it. CA doesn't get, you don't really spread that.

[17:23] You kind of lay a bead down and put the pieces together and you're done,. Or if you have pieces that fit well together and they'll stay together, then you can wick thin CA into that joint. And again, you're done instantly. And you have to be careful because if you're working on thinner, like eighth inch or even thinner balsa on that, it will go all the way through. So if you're if you're holding those pieces together using your hand to actually be the clamp you are now part of

[17:50] the airframe i have done that before oh i have to i have to i've been yeah i've chewed balsa off of my fingers many many times something i want to mention though with ca when it's cured, it's harder than the balsa that surrounds it. And what I'm getting at is when it comes time to sand that joint, a good example of this is wing sheeting. If you glue sheets of balsa together to act as your wing sheeting and you use CA, that joint is going to be

[18:23] harder than the wood that surrounds it. So when you go to sand it, you use ca that joint is going to be harder than the wood that surrounds it so when you go to sand it the wood around that joint is going to sand faster than the joint itself so then you end up with you get to see every single glue joint so another reason to use oliphatic resin because it sands just the same as the balsa does yeah i came across that when i was

[18:41] building the duelist too and that's problematic in places. It can be, yeah. And here's another tidbit about CA. Monocoat and ultracote stick wonderfully to CA, but maybe not so wonderfully to the balls around it. So if you ever go to recover that airframe, then you have to pretty much sand off the covering over those CA joints. then you have to pretty much sand off the covering over those CA joints. Adds a little bit of work to the recover,

[19:12] but certainly you have to be careful with sanding CA joints, especially on wing shading or anything that has been edge glued that then requires sanding. Yeah, anytime you use CA, it's a good idea to have it to where it's not, I don't want to say not seen, but not something where it's flat, like big flat areas. CA doesn't like to, because of the sanding, CA doesn't like to be used very much. I like, for CA, I use CA a lot on fuselage formers because they're inside.

[19:41] Generally, you're not going to have to try to sand those joints, and you can work quickly. Yeah. Sometimes, maybe I'm not the most patient, and I'll break out the thin CA when I'm doing a fuselage or whatever. But, yeah, for wing sheeting and actually ribs to spars, that's another good spot for CA. Like, again, it allows you to work quickly. Yeah. Especially if you're going to cover it with sheeting. Yeah. Yeah, because that'll all get held in with the sheets. Exactly.

[20:04] I guess yeah. Yeah, because that'll all get held in with the sheets. Exactly. So yeah, for balsa to balsa, yep, you can use any of those adhesives with caveats. There's always something, isn't there? Yeah, of course.

[20:26] It's never cut and dry. like a preformed cowl or maybe some wheel pants or something to balsa or any other kind of wood, CA is going to be my choice for that scenario. The reason for that is, again, it allows you to work quickly, whereas epoxy, maybe you don't have time or maybe you can't because of the shape of the part, you can't get a good way to clamp it together, so you have to hold it while the glue dries. Yeah, so my choice in that particular scenario is CA.

[20:51] Epoxy would be my next choice, especially if you can clamp it and set it aside and not worry about it. But usually ABS parts are going to have shapes to them. it's going to be maybe a rounded cowl or wheel pants or maybe a windscreen, even a clear windscreen. So CA would be my first choice there. But again, we have caveats. If you're using CA on transparent plastics, you should know that CA does create a haze or kind

[21:21] of a fog that kind of turns white that you'll then be able to see as it condenses on yeah i don't know what it does but it does make it kind of difficult it even gets on covering too like if you're using on ca hinges and stuff i found that when i was building the duelist yeah it sure does what about like is that going to be the same for fiberglass then same as abs yep anything that yeah anything that's not balsa or metal, let's say. Anything that's a plastic derivative.

[21:51] Yeah, I would, CA is kind of my first choice. Unless, like I said, unless I have a nice way to clamp or fixture that part and let epoxy cure, then, yeah, CA would be my choice in that particular case. Okay. cure, then yeah, CA would be my choice in that particular case. So plastic to balsa or plastic to wood, go with CA unless you can clamp it and have time to use epoxy. So next would be plywood. So either that can be light ply or aircraft, the five, seven layer, nine layer,

[22:21] even if it's thick enough plywood to anything, my choice here is epoxy. I like the strength that it provides. Usually plywood is a little bit more dense than balsa, so you don't get that penetration of CA like you can in balsa. So I go with epoxy. Allophatic resin is not a bad choice, but it doesn't have the strength. And when we're talking plywood, we're usually talking really structural members of the airframe,

[23:00] like a firewall or fuselage formers or die cut out of light ply a lot of times. So I like the strength of epoxy, especially on a firewall or a wing mount block, anything like that that's a dense wood, I'm going to go with epoxy. The other nice thing about epoxy, 30-minute epoxy for a firewall, is that you can use that to paint. Absolutely. And fuel-proof your firewall. Yeah, it makes a great fuel-proofer.

[23:18] Thin it down with a little bit of alcohol and you can brush it on and it dries crystal clear so you can still see that cool wood finish behind it. And here's another little tidbit. You can stain it. Like you can tint epoxy just like you can tint regular base paint like you buy at the hardware store. Yeah. You put a couple of drops of water-based paint in there. Now you've got a colored epoxy that you can then

[23:41] paint your firewall with and then you don't have to come back and paint it later. Well, that's interesting, yeah, because when I did the Telemaster, I ended up just painting the firewall first and then covering it with epoxy. Yep. Wish I'd have known that then. Would have saved me a step. Thanks. You're welcome. Where were you when I needed you? I know. I'm always just a phone call away or a text.

[24:00] But if I don't know I need to have the question, then how do I have the question? So I just need to be around every time you're building something. Right. Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll see if we can make that. Laurie might have something to say about that, though. I don't have a lot of time to build lately, so. That's true. Pretty much any time you're out here is the only one I build anyway. That's true. Yeah. So plywood to anything, basically, I'm going to grab the epoxy.

[24:23] So plywood to anything, basically, I'm going to grab the epoxy. And then CA, like I said, I try not to use CA on plywood parts. Now, I will caveat that as well. Die-cut light ply formers for fuselages when I'm sticking balsa to the sides of them. Sometimes I'll grab my medium CA and go to town with that.

[24:46] them, sometimes I'll grab my medium CA and go to town with that. Because I'm not going to get epoxy sometimes down in the way down corners of the fuselage. So medium CA or thick CA, I'll go with there. But epoxy is my go-to for plywood. All right. Anything else on glues? I think that about covers it. If you guys have any questions about where to use a specific kind of glue, hit us up in those many different ways you can contact us that we talked about,

[25:10] and we'll be happy to help whenever we can. All right, so next up, let's talk about tools you can make yourself. Okay. Mostly, that's going to be limited to clamps and sanding apparatus. Apparaty. Apparaty. So, I mean, like, I have a lot of custom little shaped sanding tools that I've made over the years. And I like have this, no kidding, I have like a box. I don't remember what was in the box. Now, it was, I think it was an old kit, like a really small,

[25:39] like a Gillows kit, I think. Anyway, and it's full of just uniquely shaped sanding blocks that I've made over the years to sand. Like, for instance, a leading edge. You can make those pretty easily by sanding the inverse into a soft balsa block and then lining that with sandpaper, 3M77, with some sandpaper stuck in that. And that makes a great little custom tool. And that way you can sand in consistent, even shape across that whole leading edge.

[26:11] Yeah, I didn't do that when I did mine, and it was a little difficult. Well, I mean, even with a long sanding bar, sometimes you can still get those inconsistencies over a long surface, especially if it's longer than your bar. So having a pre-shaped tool that is exactly the shape you need is one handy way to get a nice consistent edge. So those you can make yourself, you can make them out of anything. I think a lot of mine are made out of leftover 2x4s from home projects or whatever.

[26:45] We all have a bunch of those. Oh, yeah. Right angle sanding blocks, I've got quite a few of those as well. And those are just basically leftover. Like when you build a kit or even maybe not so much an ARF, but there's a lot of times there's leftover light ply that's just big enough to make a couple of pieces that you glue together in a square. And now you've got a handy-dandy perfect square you can cut a piece of ball and then sand a perfect square corner on it with that tool.

[27:14] So lots of those. Actually, I have a lot of round sanding shapes. sanding shapes. So just the opposite of a leading edge, this would be something you want to sand a hole or maybe a round notch to clear, a piece of servo linkage or something like that in a rib. Or if you want to maybe cut holes in a rib, a piece of dowel with some sandpaper glued

[27:40] to it or an ink pen or, whatever whatever whatever you need yeah because you're better off not having square angles like squares or you want nice rounded corners when you're building something like that stress stress points stress whatever you want to call it yeah yeah some place where cracks can propagate from there you go that's better but yeah lots of lots of

[28:00] little shapes like that keep them in that box. And it seems like every time I build something, I'm making another sanding block. And then I put it in my box, and then I look in the box. Oh, well, I already have one. Now I have a second one with maybe a different grid on it or something. But sanding blocks and sanding shapes, like I said, you can make them from anything. There's a lot of tools that I've made that are made out of aluminum.

[28:27] T-stock, I think it's called, or is it called T-stock? Like T-bars or something? T-bars, yeah. Those make, actually, those make great sanding tools because they don't flex. They're nice and stiff, and you can get those in quite long pieces at the extrusions. That's what I'm thinking of. Oh. Aluminum extrusions. Yeah. And those come in lots of different shapes and sizes and just you can find them at at the hardware stores and and the home

[28:49] improvement centers those make great sanding blocks too because you can like i said you can get them in really long lengths and that way you can get that nice consistent shape over that over that length so that's something you can use for a sanding block. But basically anything that you can stick sandpaper to can be used as a sanding block. So another tool I find I make a lot are clamps. Aside from using the old standard, rubber bands to hold a fuselage together

[29:19] or clothes pins to hold maybe laminated parts of stringers, things like that. Sometimes I'll make my own clamp. I remember here not too long ago I had to make something to clamp two wing halves together because for whatever reason they needed to be clamped together to get a good glue joint instead of just the usual method of laying one and propping another one up and sticking them together and taping them. I used a piece of wall thread with really big washers on either end, and then I had

[29:52] nuts that I could turn in on either end and actually provide that clamping force. I think that was actually on an old Top Flight B25, I think is where I used that. Anyway, so that's a tool that I made myself just from stuff I had laying around the house. Kind of like a bar clamp, but that would obviously work better, I think, on a flat wing than on something with dihedral though, right? Well, actually, this wing had some dihedral,

[30:16] and I just basically weighted down the joint at the dihedral so that, one wing was propped up and the other I think was laying down flat on the table. But in order to secure that, the joint where the dihedral was, I just added a lot of weight. That way, as I clamped it, it didn't try to push everything out of alignment. And we're not talking like I didn't have to clamp it with, 60 inch pounds of force or anything like that.

[30:45] It was just enough to keep the joint together while the epoxy cured. You're not putting a 30-pound dumbbell on it. Exactly, exactly. Although, I mean, I have done that before. Yeah, when you're laminating something, having that weight on top. Oh, well, laminating something, that's different than joining a wing. But, I mean, 45 pound 45 pound plate from our weight set at home that made a nice i made a nice clamp oh look at you having a weight

[31:10] set i didn't say i lifted it i'm just saying at least you have one i have one i guess i don't it it does a good job of collecting dust in our closet but that's another thing, the all-thread. Also, something else you could use in specific situations, you may need the example I'll use is our big fuselage that's hanging up here behind us that we're going to build. I'm not sure I own enough clamps to clamp the various parts together as we're gluing them for this thing.

[31:46] So what I might do in this case is I'll make my own clamps by cutting a notch into an old piece of plywood or balsa even that is just wide enough to fit the two pieces that I want stuck together inside and maybe even make it a little on the small side by a few thousands so that i can just slip that piece over the two parts to hold them together while the glue dries it's almost like a wider clothes pin yeah yeah but yeah it doesn't have any spring action it's just the only spring

[32:15] action is the spring in the material and then like when you put rubber bands on the bottom or something to hold the bottom together okay yeah rubber bands or yeah whatever tie it off with string whatever you got to do but yeah like i said i'm i'm pretty sure i'm not going to have enough clamps to clamp this thing together so i'll probably be resorting to homemade

[32:36] tool homemade clamp for that yeah so and not quite a tool but something handy to have around when you're building with balsa is Windex, and I'm talking about the Windex with ammonia in it. The reason for that is sometimes maybe we'll want to shape a piece of balsa, but we don't want to carve it out of a huge block. The most recent example I'll use is the wheel wells in my dualist wing.

[33:08] use is my the the wheel wells in my dualist wing i lined those with balsa and i did that by taking some leftover wing sheeting rolling it around a can i think i used a our can of glass cleaner there it is and you soak that with with the windex and the ammonia it allows that balsa to become kind of pliable. And you shape that around there and let it dry and then pull it off. Next thing you've got round balsa.

[33:31] So that's not really a tool, but it's definitely something that can be used as a tool, especially when you're wanting to shape balsa and maybe make it round like turtledex. That's another great use for that. Yeah, it definitely helps the bending process. Like I've tried it before without using the Windex and I've cracked the balsa. Yeah. And then, yeah, putting some Windex on there, it makes it work a lot easier. And you'd be surprised at how pliable balsa becomes. It really is.

[33:58] Especially lengthwise when you're doing with the grain. It actually really becomes quite flexible. when you're doing with the grain, it actually really becomes quite flexible and you can make some really tight radius with eighth inch sheeting or 332 sheeting. And so it's the ammonia that helps with that or is that… That's what I've read. I've not tried any other type of ammonia. I only have Windex with

[34:18] ammonia in my workshop. But I've been told that the ammonia is the active ingredient that allows the balsa to do that. Interesting. So next, yeah, stands. We talked about those on our Saving Money in RC episode. But those are great tools for holding fuselages while you're working on them. You can make a foam. And what I'm talking about is the thick pink foam board you get at like the home centers, cutting that into different shapes and making uprights and stands.

[34:49] You can make stands of any kind out of this stuff, and it's really not that expensive. And it goes together pretty easily, too. And it's pink or blue, by the way, depending on manufacturer. Right. I think Dow was blue, if I remember right, and some of the other manufacturers are pink. Owens Corning is probably pink because of the pink Panther. Remember the Owens Corning commercials? They always had a pink Panther in them? No. That'd be before my time. Oh, I'm sorry. Showing my age again.

[35:16] There you go. But anyway, you can make your own stands. You can make them any shape you need. You can make two uprights with a slot in it to fit a wing in. You can make them with notches to hold a fuselage with a base plate. I mean, there's no limit to what you can make out of that stuff. So making your own stands, those are tools. I think I would consider them tools. Oh, yeah. Because they can hold stuff for you while you work on them.

[35:41] And then the last thing I want to talk about, I'm really excited about. I just read this on RC Groups. It's been on there for a while. Apparently, it was an older post, but I just came across it. Building your own table, like a magnetic building table, but using Lego. Huh. Yeah. Yeah. How? It blows my mind. I don't understand that one. What do you mean? Well, like, talk through it, because I've got to see if I can put this in my mind, because I don't get it yet.

[36:09] Okay, so what a magnetic building table is, right? Like a Lego one or regular? No, like a regular one. Yeah, okay. So you've got a piece of steel that is your base, right, your building surface, and then you have various magnetic devices. Well, they're right angles, usually blocks, magnetic blocks, which you then arrange on the table to hold your pieces in alignment. Okay. So I read on RC Groups that the guy was taking Lego bricks,

[36:40] and how Lego bricks, like a 2×4 Lego brick, I know a lot about Lego because that's one of my other hobbies. But when you flip it over, it has like a two by four brick has three big holes in it, right on the bottom. What do you mean two by? Okay, so that's the one that has eight little holes on top, right? Okay, so a two by four. Okay, a quick Lego tutorial here. Bricks are measured by the number of studs on them, right? And a stud is the

[37:07] piece that sticks out on the top. Or the circle. Studs. So a two by four brick is two studs by four studs in dimension. And a standard brick is roughly three plates high. So. Three what? Plates. So a Lego plate, three of those stacked together equals the thickness of a Lego brick. Don't know if you knew that or not, but now you do. No. So, if you take a 2×4 brick and turn it over, there's three hollow tubes on the bottom of it. Just the right…

[37:39] Makes sense because that's what grabs onto the holes on top. Right. Or the round things on top. Exactly. Okay. And those are just the right diameter, 8 millimeters, to glue 8 millimeter round magnets that you can get off Amazon, glue these into there, and now you have a magnetic perfectly square. Did I mention Lego bricks are perfectly square? Thanks, Lego. But anyway, you fill these things with those relatively inexpensive magnets,

[38:05] and now you have perfectly square bricks to arrange that are then also stackable to customizable shapes to put on your building table and have unique arrangements to do whatever you need them to do to hold your parts together while you're cooling. Huh. So… And here's the great thing. Like most of us folks who are building model airplanes these days, our kids are grown. So there's just a bevy of Lego out there that the kids no longer use that you can then make into tools. So basically…

[38:41] Yeah, so there you go. If your kids are older and they don't play with their Legos anymore… It's not Legos. It's Lego. So if your kids are older and they don't play with your Legos anymore… Lego. Why is it not Lego? Or why is it not Legos? It's not Legos. Lego is plural of Lego. See, that's just… I don't… If you would like to play with your little kids' toys that you step on when they leave them out and you get upset about, you can actually build with them. That's kind of cool.

[39:08] Yeah. I don't know why I got so excited. It's probably because I combined two hobbies together. Probably why I got excited about it. I can get behind John R.C. airplanes, but Legos, Lego, whatever, sorry, don't slap me. I'm not going to slap you. I don't get it. But, I mean, it's perfect because— But, hold on. How is it plural? Plural means there's more. It's like… Yeah. Lego is plural, just like aircraft is plural of aircraft. Same thing. It's not aircrafts, right?

[39:38] Yeah, but it's airplanes and airplane. Yeah, but an airplane is also an aircraft. So a Lego is also Legos. No. Anyway. You're wrong. I'm not going to argue because I'm sure a lot more about Lego than I do. I get to combine both of two of my hobbies into doing one. So I think I might actually, I mean, let's be honest, I'm probably not going to put one of these tables together, but I got really excited when I read about that.

[40:05] So maybe someday when I get my cool shop and garage and all that built, I'll put something like that together. There you go. Maybe. Yeah. What else do you want to talk about, Tom? So, yeah, that's pretty much what I wanted to cover. I mean, tools you can build yourself to save you a trip from going to the hardware store to buy a tool. I'm a big fan, and those are some of the ones I've built over the years. Cool. You want to move on to the to the hardware store to buy a tool i'm a big fan

[40:25] and those are some of the ones i've built over the years cool you want to move on to listening to questions let's do that okay okay let's start off with jim okay jim says i think i've heard all of your episodes i was wondering if you have talked about or can talk about small homemade runways in particular textile fabric runways do you guys have any experience with these no yeah so we'll we'll start he he goes on to ask some more questions but we'll stop there and

[40:51] neither one of us ron or i have a lot of experience with these i know what he's talking about and i have flown off of them before and my only real point i guess would be that they're only as good as the surface they're rolled out on. So if you roll it out on a surface that has the clumpy, kind of patchy, weedy grass, that will show up in the finished product. So if it's not a perfectly smooth surface, you're not going to get a perfectly smooth surface.

[41:20] The only thing you really gain, I would say, is that you don't have the drag of the grass. like if you have propeller clearance issues or whatever, might not be a bad idea for something like that. But for Ron and I, we're perfectly happy with a nice short mowed grass field. Yeah. Well, let me read on this and then we'll kind of get to that. So he says,

[41:41] I have 13 acres in a rural area. I currently only fly foam aircraft homemade and rtf aircraft which is ready to fly i took a 10-year break but getting back into it by getting a super cub going nice welcome back again yeah it would be cool to fly out of my pasture what kind of size do i need for what i fly and is this a good alternative to asphalt thanks for everything great show so as tom said

[42:07] like we fly at my house yeah off of about 100 foot runway and really it's just cut grass yeah yeah and we've flown small things out of here too sure we have it's probably well because of how my setup is it's it's more conducive to flying smaller things other than like big airplanes. But really, like I think your biggest concern with putting any of the plastic down is first off, it's going to be expensive. Like just a mowed grass runway is simple.

[42:38] I mean, it grows back if your wife gets upset with you about it. if you have to do anything, it's easy to do. There's really no upkeep other than cutting your grass low. And really, like I said, you can fly a lot of things off of that. And since you said you're getting a cub, that's the perfect excuse to get bigger wheels on your cub. Here we go. I love Ron and his big wheels. I like the tundra look

[43:01] of like the short takeoff and landing cubs, like when they do that. So when I had my 80-inch wingspan cub, I think it had 5-inch wheels on it. Yeah, they were big. And they were the balloon type. They looked really cool. Unfortunately, I sold that airplane, and it has since been crashed. Not by me. Like I said, I sold it. But anyway, so depending on what you're doing, like I said, ours is about 100 foot long and I think probably 30-ish feet wide. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't have to be huge.

[43:33] No, it depends on your skill level. Like really, if you can kind of set it down in a perfect spot and kind of spot land on your own, you can get a smaller runway than if you can't. land on your own you can get a smaller a smaller runway than if you can't yeah but yeah so as for going asphalt like i i don't really want to make the like where i am i'm not comfortable making that kind of investment into here because that's expensive that's expensive and the other

[43:58] thing that's nice about not using the fabric is the fabric i'm sure is going to cover or i'm sorry it's going to kill whatever it covers. I would think so. Yeah. And if it doesn't, whatever's growing underneath it will eventually try to probably grow through it if it's like the… And if not necessarily through it, it's going to make it all like bunchy and clumpy and stuff. Yeah. So, yeah, personally, I've not had experience with that, and I don't think I would do that at my house.

[44:22] Just cut your grass short. Yeah. It works for us. And we fly, like he said, we fly small stuff out here quite frequently in the summertime, so. Yeah, and we get up to the 40 size, give or take. Like, I don't know if I go, just because of the room we have, I don't think I go much bigger than that. And that's another. Flew my dualist here once. On accident, on accident. It was an accident. Air quotes. Yeah, i see that

[44:47] but yeah the only other concern really is is the is what you have around you like as long as long as you don't have trees like at the end of either one of your or at either end of your runway things like that you want to try to minimize too but yeah i think 100 feet for will be plenty long enough for anything small that you're going to fly foamy-wise out of your place. Oh, especially, yeah, especially for foamies,

[45:10] because they don't take much at all. Like 20 feet might be long enough for some of those. Yeah, really. As overpowered as most of the airplanes are these days, 20 feet is usually plenty to take off in anyway. Yep. Okay, next we have Matthias back from last week. He says, hello again, and thanks for answering my question in the last podcast. You're welcome. I'm back to give you guys an update on the DX7 radio problem and to ask a question.

[45:32] And he says, sorry if my English is a little hard to understand, which it's not, by the way. First of all, don't apologize. I know people whose first language is English and they can't communicate as well as you do. So you're fine. But he says, but with the battery voltage at 6.5 volts, I meant that it was down at 6.5 volts at one time and then I fully recharged it. I think the problem showed up after I recharged it. Also,

[46:00] when I noticed that the throttle behaved weirdly, I used the monitor function to see why it was so strange. Maybe I should have used the negative 100 to 100 scale to describe the problem instead of percentages. After the throttle stick problem, I just let the transmitter be. Sometimes I turned it on to check if it had fixed itself, but it didn't for some reason. I almost forgot that it existed, but then I checked it again, and it seems to work again.

[46:23] I flew it in my simulator for over an hour, and the throttle worked perfectly. I haven't done anything except turning it on sometimes. If you're having problems with it, I would still just probably send it into Spectrum just to get it checked out. I wouldn't risk an airplane. I mean, without actually having it in our hot little hands and seeing what it's actually doing, it would be hard to diagnose what it is. So yeah, your best bet is if you have any doubt at all on the transmitter,

[46:50] just take the time and send it in and build an airplane while you're waiting. That's a good idea. But really, if you're on a simulator and that's what you're using it for, no big deal. He also talks a little bit, we'll get to UMX planes. If that's all you're flying and they're not like fast, heavy planes that are going to crash, crash when they crash, not that big of a deal either. Crash, crash when they crash? what I mean? Crash, crash when they crash. Like when they crash,

[47:16] they're not going to crash, crash. They're just going to crash. Oddly, I know exactly what you mean. I just thought it sounded funny. Well, and then, yeah. So if it's not something where you're worried about damaging an airplane badly when you crash, then I would use that. Or in a simulator, I would use it. But for anything big, yeah. If you have any questions or any doubts on a transmitter, get it checked out. Yeah.

[47:42] It's not worth it. I mean, and we're not talking, just the damage that you might cause your own airplane. I mean, an airplane that's out of control that, weighs a few pounds can do quite a bit of damage to somebody's car, somebody's house, somebody. So don't risk it. Like he said, for simulators and small UMXs, you're probably okay. But if you decide to fly something a little bit more stout than that, just send it in. Yeah. Better safe than sorry.

[48:08] Yep. And then he says, now to the question. For my UMX plane, I have a tiny eFlight 1S 150 milliamp hour battery. I bought the plane and battery used, so the battery is not a perfect rectangle anymore. -oh. How much swelling is too swollen for a tiny battery? I still fly with a battery and have quite a lot of power, so the battery doesn't feel bad at all. Greetings from Sweden, and thanks once again for the podcast and YouTube channel, Matthias. So, as for batteries,

[48:38] anytime they puff, I'm done with them. Like, honestly, because when they start to puff up, they are degrading, and they're getting worse and worse, and when they start to puff up, they are degrading and they're getting worse and worse. And it will get to a point where it won't work as well as it worked when it wasn't puffed. But it's just, once again, it's not worth the possibility of a fire or anything of that

[49:00] magnitude. Even these small little, I think we call them chiclet batteries because they look like chiclets, which is a gum here in the US. I don't know if you guys are familiar. Anyway, even these little guys, when they go off, they can cause fires. If they're stored next to a stack of wood or something that's flammable, they can certainly set something like that off. So it's really not worth risking it, especially if it's not a rectangle anymore.

[49:24] Yeah. If your rectangle battery turned into a sphere. Just go ahead and get rid of that one. And those little chiclet batteries are really not that expensive. No. I'm usually buying like four packs and stuff to look on Amazon or whatnot. But yeah, once again, with that one one better safe than sorry i would not

[49:52] like i would not use it if it was too bad like a little puff i'll admit i've flown with them but not not a lot yeah when they when to me when they when you squeeze them and there's no like give to them and they're like more like a solid like puff shape yeah it's it's time when you squeeze them they should be solid because that means they're not puff a solid, like puff shape. Yeah, it's… Wait, what? When you squeeze them, they should be solid because that means they're not puffed.

[50:12] Yeah, but sometimes when they get puffy, they have like a squish to them. Yeah. I'll fly them in that case. I'll be very cautious with them. So is the amount of pressure inside of the puff? So is the amount of pressure. Like if they're so solid and puffy that they just feel like bricks but still puffy you're definitely past the the point of no return on whether that battery is going to go off or not it

[50:32] is going to go off eventually so yeah okay yeah so just be careful just yeah yeah don't just replace it i'm with ron on that one okay and the next one came through as a text so i don't know a name because they didn't say so So anyway, it says, Hi, Ron. I'll be interested to hear how Starlink works for you. It just became available here, but has warnings weather can block the signal. I currently use AT&T wireless home phone. It's no longer sold, but they still take my money.

[50:58] It's 4G and works great for us. Can't stream due to a 50 gigabyte a month data cap. Ouch. Ouch. But my priority is working every day, and I never come close to the 50 gigabytes. I won't be surprised if Elon Musk and his crew gets it to work with no downsides. That guy is wicked smart, and so are his people. Cannot disagree. Yeah, he's, yeah. He's a genius. But anyway, so I did get an email update on my order. Unfortunately, they're pushing it farther out.

[51:27] When I bought it, it was supposed to be two to four weeks until it shipped. Now it's four to six weeks from when I ordered it, which doesn't surprise me because they have a lot of interest in this, and it's going to be good. As for the weather blocking signal, I've not heard any issues with weather being a problem with the Starlink stuff. It does have a mode where it will melt snow off if it gets snowy. That's awesome. Yeah, so people have had it in blizzards and said they've

[51:56] really not noticed any difference with it whatsoever. That's good. Heavy rain maybe, but it's not often that we get a heavy rain. It's just something with whatever band they're using. I think they're using like a KU band or something like that to transmit. I think it's less susceptible to that kind of stuff. But once again, we'll see. And I'll definitely give you guys updates when I get it. Hopefully it's sooner rather than later. Time will tell. So next up is a contact from Bill.

[52:29] He says, I emailed one of you a few weeks ago about what to do with an ARF that doesn't seem to have proper wing incidence or any thrust angles. Did speak to SIG and they say all of that is built in. He says, I just don't see it like I do with other models. So I reviewed the trimming episode, and he's referring to our flight trimming episode, I think. He says, did Tom ever address what coordinating turns was in a later episode, and I missed it.

[52:59] First off, neither one of us received an email, Bill, from you on this. So check, if you don't mind, to make sure, where you were sending it. But Tom and I both checked our email and we didn't get anything. I want to make sure that we're not missing emails. Right. So, text me, let me know some other way what you emailed and when it was so I can check and see what's going on because that's concerning to me. Yeah, we don't want to miss contacts from our listeners. No.

[53:28] So if we're having an email with or a problem with email, I want to know about it. Yeah, we want to get that fixed. So, Bill, to answer your question, I probably did get away from coordinating turns. Talking about them. And talking about them in that episode. I do that a lot. I'll be talking about one thing and then I'll go off on a tangent and I'll forget to go back and clarify what I was talking about originally. So I'll do that right

[53:51] quick. A coordinated turn is basically feeding rudder in along with your ailerons in a turn. So as not to drag the tail, I think is a term that most people are familiar with. And that's simply basically using your ailerons and your rudder together to make a nice, pretty turn such that the tail follows the nose around the arc of that turn, if that makes sense.

[54:21] So in full-size aircraft, we actually have an instrument in the airplane that's called a turn coordinator, and it'll actually show you if you're uncoordinated, basically meaning the tail is not following the airplane around in a turn. So, let me try and think this one through, because I'm not quite, like, I don't understand this very much. Okay. So, according to you, a pretty turn is when you have everything is just in a line. Yeah. Right? Right.

[54:50] So, can we think about it almost as though you're kind of doing a little bit of a knife edge if you don't use the rudder? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because in a knife edge, you're dragging the rudder or the tail of the airplane in a line that is not… Sometimes they're like 45 degrees to the angle of the airplane. In a line that doesn't follow exactly along with the nose of the airplane, right? Okay.

[55:15] So the two lines are going the same direction, but they're parallel lines. They're not lines laid on top of each other. So it's almost like you're skidding along the turn. Exactly. Skidding. Okay, so i think i understand it a little bit so a coordinated turn is a fight without any airplanes yeah like drifting for airplanes exactly well kind of well no i'm okay i'm certain opposite of drifting you're really dragging it's like undrifting

[55:40] no okay so i think i'm starting to wrap my mind around it then, like what it is. I don't notice it a lot when we fly, though. Yeah, and most people don't coordinate there, and I probably don't do it most of the time because the airplanes are so fast and they fly so well, they just sort of naturally follow a nice smooth motion when you make a turn. But on airplanes like this one here that we're going to build and larger airplanes, it becomes more noticeable because you can see it.

[56:07] That when you're, you're banking and you're bringing the airplane around on that turn, if the tail is, following along, but it's kind of dragging, then, you're not coordinated. So it's not a nice, pretty turn. So that's what I meant by coordinated turns, and that's how you coordinate a turn. You just feed enough rudder such that the tail follows the nose around in the same line so that you're not skidding. Okay. And then the second part to his question.

[56:35] So Bill goes on to say, he says, second, someone got me a sport trainer ARF. The wing needs to be glued together, but it looks like it has dihedral. So how do I glue them and maintain the dihedral? Plans say to lay it flat, but LOL, clearly not possible. And then he follows it up with another contact later. He says, LOL, trial and error. I figured out that painter's tape doesn't destroy the covering, and I think it's holding it in place pretty well.

[57:03] Thanks to you and Tom, I did run out and get the 30-minute epoxy. The two of you give such great information on your podcast, and I often find myself re-listening to many of them to catch things I missed the first time. I think when I have more time off, I want to re-listen to them and actually keep a notebook of all the information. Keep up the super great work. Thanks, Bill. Yeah, thank you very much for that. I appreciate that. I'm glad you figured it out.

[57:28] It's not hard, as you've discovered. And it sounds like you pretty much did it the way I normally glue a wing half together. As I take one wing half, lay it flat on my building table, bring the other wing half up against it, prop up a wing tip, add some epoxy and some tape, hold it all together, and there you go. That's how you glue a wing together. Yeah, and most of the time for the angle, you're going to have your wing

[57:50] brace that's in there. So you don't have to worry about making the angle or getting the angle right before you glue it, right? Yeah. A lot of times you'll get dihedral braces that are their sole purpose to maintain that dihedral. But on wings where you don't have those usually the root ribs are set at angles so you lay one wing down flat on the table bring the other wing up of up against it and then basically block up that other wing tip until

[58:16] those two pieces mate perfectly together but on some of them there's no really i didn't know that yep i figured all of them had at least some sort of brace inside not always wow yeah them there's no, really? I didn't know that. Yep. I figured all of them had at least some sort of brace inside. Not always. Wow. Yeah, there's been lots of airplanes that I've put together with no dihedral braces, just two root ribs epoxied together. Wow. I didn't know that.

[58:38] Plenty strong, especially when you wrap that center joint with fiberglass tape or fiberglass cloth and then glue that down. Pretty strong. But you wouldn't do that on an ARF. Just follow what they say. Yeah. Yeah. Do whatever. Like, if you don't have the instructions, if there's dihedral braces, use them. Yeah. But that technique usually works pretty well. All right. Anything else? No. That's all I got. All right. Then until next time, I'm Ron.

[59:04] And I'm Tom. i'm tom good night good night Thank you. you