Ep 80: Ron‘s Crashed Extra 300 has been found, Fuel Proofing an Airplane

[00:00:05] Hello, everyone. Welcome to the 80th episode of the RC Plane Lab podcast. I'm Ron. And I'm Tom. 80 episodes. 80 episodes. I wasn't expecting that. I actually have 79 written down, and then I checked. Wow. We've done this a lot.

[00:00:20] Yeah, we have. It's been fun. So far. We're closing in on the one hundo. Wow. We'll have to do something big for that. Yeah. Hey, speaking of doing something big. I don't know what. It's Halloween this week.

[00:00:30] Halloween is coming up, and we didn't do something big, so let's not speak of doing something big. No, so the time. I mean, honestly, it snuck up big time on us. So I think what we're going to do, for those of you who haven't listened to our last year's Halloween episode, we're going to relist that, republish that on the Saturday or Sunday, whatever day, probably Saturday night. And then you can take a listen to it again if you have heard it, and if not, enjoy. It was fun to do that.

[00:00:59] It was fun. But it was just, time flies.

[00:01:03] It sure does.

[00:01:03] Like, I can't believe Halloween is upon us, and next is going to be Thanksgiving, and then Christmas, and…

[00:01:10] And then we'll be in the… It's episode a week….realm.

[00:01:15] Which somebody did reach out and ask us when we were going to start that again. Eventually. I don't know. I don't… I want to. It's in the plans. I want to very badly. Yeah. But schedules just aren't quite lining up yet. Yeah. But we will get there this winter. I promise.

[00:01:32] Well, and it's not something we want to rush into.

[00:01:35] Mm-hmm.

[00:01:36] Back when we were doing weekly episodes, we had lots of material. True. There was a lot more to talk about. Yeah. Now, we're… I don't want to say we're scraping the bottom of the barrel for topics, but we're running out of stuff to talk about, so…

[00:01:50] Well, that's why we need to start the tri-motor and start working on that. I know. I know. That'll give us something to talk about. Yep. Weekly, if we can stay on it. Right. So, anyway… It's coming.

[00:01:59] Yeah.

[00:01:59] And then we'll…

[00:02:00] So, listen to the Halloween episode Saturday. If you haven't… If you didn't hear it last year, give it a listen.

[00:02:06] It was fun.

[00:02:07] It'll still be relevant this year.

[00:02:08] It will. It will. There's nothing yearly based on that one that wouldn't make sense. Right. Whoa. You okay? Yep. I'm good. Another thing. This is exciting. This is great news. Kind of. I was so happy. You were so happy. It was okay. We found the airplane. Well, somebody found the airplane. Well, okay. Yes. I'm guessing the… So, the extra 300 that I crashed into the field…

[00:02:34] And went into another dimension because I couldn't find it.

[00:02:38] It came back because it got sick in the other dimension, I guess. But, no. So, it was found… Apparently, they took the corn out and it was not found in the corn. Right. So, I would not have believed that it would have flown so far away that it was in the beans. However, apparently, it was in the beans.

[00:03:00] Yeah.

[00:03:01] Only because when we did get it back and we kind of took it apart because it's not salvageable.

[00:03:09] No.

[00:03:10] Which is expected, honestly.

[00:03:12] I'm pretty sure the combine ran over it. It looked like it. I'm pretty sure. Yeah.

[00:03:15] But, there were beans in it.

[00:03:17] Yeah. I want to back up just a little bit. A big thank you to Reggie who actually texted us when he went to fly at the field and discovered that whoever had found said airplane had collected its remains and put it underneath the awning there behind the flight line, which was very thoughtful. And, I just wanted to say thanks, Reggie, for shouting out to us and having Ron go out and pick it up.

[00:03:41] I went out and got it. And, that reminds me, poor Reggie. So, the day he went out and found that, he actually took two airplanes to fly. I think one of them was his big S-Bach. And, the other one, I think he said was, I didn't see it. I think he said it was like a Hangar 9 Mustang or something like that.

[00:03:55] Yeah.

[00:03:56] That was still in the back of his truck. So, apparently, he forgot a piece for the Mustang so he couldn't fly it.

[00:04:02] Been there, done that.

[00:04:03] Yeah. But, then he spent all the time. Because, big airplanes take a little bit of time to put together and get it all set up and fueled up and ready to go. Yeah. He did that to his S-Bach. And, then he realized that he left his transmitter on.

[00:04:15] Oh, dear. The whole morning, the whole way out.

[00:04:18] Oh, gosh.

[00:04:19] So, he could not fly. Tell me he didn't try.

[00:04:23] No. No. No, he didn't fly. Like, he noticed that it was too low to fly. Excellent. Good job. He was mature enough not to chance.

[00:04:30] I'm sure he wasn't happy.

[00:04:32] I'm guessing if it was another airplane, cheaper, smaller, that he didn't care about as much, he probably would have.

[00:04:37] Well, that's okay, too. I mean, smaller airplanes, you go through all that. Of course, a smaller airplane wouldn't have required as much work either, so.

[00:04:45] True. But, anyway, so, he did not get to fly. He had to spend the time putting it together and then taking it apart.

[00:04:51] Well, he's getting good at it.

[00:04:53] Getting it back up and putting it away.

[00:04:55] Well, I mean, I can say I've been there before. Well, I mean, made it to the field and forgot a wing tube or a transmitter.

[00:05:02] Or a battery. I've actually done that more than once, so.

[00:05:05] It happens.

[00:05:06] But, anyway, so, back to the airplane we found. Yeah, yeah.

[00:05:08] So, you, post-crash inspection, revealed a bean. A couple beans. Yeah, in the wings.

[00:05:16] Yeah.

[00:05:16] So, which leads us to believe that it was in the beans when it was found.

[00:05:20] According to Google Maps, the beans are about 600 feet away.

[00:05:25] Man, that, and that, so.

[00:05:27] I don't, I don't understand it.

[00:05:29] I don't either. I mean, well, now, granted, I wasn't there, so I don't have that perspective. I was. But, based on what you told me. Mm-hmm. And it's not a big airplane. So, 600 feet away, well, it would be 600 plus, because I know it wasn't on the edge of the beans. Correct. Because I walked them.

[00:05:46] Mm-hmm.

[00:05:46] And I walked a good, five, eight rows, beyond the corn in the beans. So, 600 minimum. At 600 feet, man, that airplane is going to be tiny. Like, visually.

[00:06:01] Yeah. So, and I've said it before, memories are malleable. That's true. As you remember things, they change every time. So, what I can only figure is that maybe I wasn't as far along in the final approach curve as I thought I was, to where when I lost it, it was still flying away from me more than I really thought it was flying away from me.

[00:06:23] And that could be, yes, it does. And that could be because, I mean, it would also make sense that, the corn was obviously at full height. Mm-hmm. So, it could have traveled who knows how far once it got below visual line of sight, the corn as it was going down.

[00:06:41] So, if it was, if you had made the turn and you hadn't fully made the turn to come back to you, thereby decreasing the distance, and you were still kind of on the outbound part of your turn, and it went below the corn, yeah, who knows how far it could have gone.

[00:06:54] Well, and it was, like, I was flying level with the corn to make that curve. Like, I wasn't actually making a, I wasn't lowering the, I wasn't decreasing the altitude. And it just could have gone farther than any of us really thought.

[00:07:10] Well, obviously it did because there's no way I would have guessed that it was in the beans. But anyway.

[00:07:14] Yeah, I ruled that out because I was so sure of myself that it wouldn't have been that far away.

[00:07:20] I was right. Bob, if you're listening, you were right. It was in the beans.

[00:07:23] Yeah, that's, I hate being wrong, but I admit it when it is because it happens. So, and then we went ahead and got it taken apart and looked at.

[00:07:32] There's a few things I think we can salvage. The engine, I'm looking at it right now, it's a Sato 72. I'm pretty sure we can, it'll fly again. Yeah. I mean, it looks bad.

[00:07:42] Have at it.

[00:07:42] It looks really bad because I'm pretty sure, I mean, I've seen crash damage before, and this is pretty severe for crashing in a cornfield or bean field.

[00:07:51] It hit the ground hard. Like it had to have just by how much dirt was up on the airplane, how much was just everywhere too.

[00:07:59] Okay. Well, I mean, that could be the, the valve, or I'm sorry, the push rod guide tubes are both pushed back towards the cylinder.

[00:08:07] They're bent. Yeah.

[00:08:08] And the nipple on the muffler is broken off, where you get your pressure from.

[00:08:16] Oh, I didn't even notice that.

[00:08:17] And then the biggest thing is that the actual back plate that the, the piece that comes off the back plate that the carburetor bolts to, it was actually busted clean off the back plate.

[00:08:26] So, pretty good impact. It was a hard hit. But then again, how much of that possibly is from combine damage too?

[00:08:32] I think, well, I don't know. I mean, it's hard to say. Either way, I'm pretty sure it's fixable. And the really good news is that I don't think the crankshaft is bent because I can pull it through, 360 degrees and there's no hitches in it. There's no like hard spots other than when it comes up on compression.

[00:08:51] Nothing that I care to do. No, I'm totally going to go through it. Like I said, it's yours.

[00:08:56] I have no need for it. Well, it'd be a good engine for the P40.

[00:09:01] Well, I already have an engine for the P40. And it's another nitro I could really care less about doing this time. But anyway, maybe we'll do that.

[00:09:10] At any rate, yeah, the engine's going to live. And I think a few of the servos, I know you… I am.

[00:09:15] I don't trust them. Like, I get it. Okay, they're sealed. They have rubber seals on them.

[00:09:19] You took them apart. These are good quality Savox servos, by the way, or Savox or Sabox, however you pronounce it. Everybody can do it their own way. Metal gears. They're metal geared servos. And there's not a hiccup in any of the gear trains. There is one or two servos that I'm okay with just throwing away. Yeah. Yeah, these are good quality Savox or Savox or whatever it is.

[00:09:39] That just… They've been sitting outside too long for me to be comfortable using them again.

[00:09:45] So, which kind of leads into the post-mortem inspection. we powered up the radio when we started taking it apart.

[00:09:56] Which surprised me that it turned on. Which, by the way, battery gone. Don't know where the battery went. Yeah, it's completely… It's somewhere. Yeah. It wasn't with the wreckage, with the carnage. But it was…

[00:10:06] It's MIA. Yeah. So, who knows? Who knows? Did I take you off topic? Well, I was just thinking about the crash that I, years ago…

[00:10:19] Was that the nemesis? Nemesis.

[00:10:21] Yeah, it was a nemesis. Seagull nemesis. But the battery departed the airplane before the crash, which is actually what caused the crash. And I don't think that's the cause here, because the battery was inside the fuselage. I don't think there's any way for it to leave there.

[00:10:32] Now, hold on. That was the nemesis that lost the hatch?

[00:10:35] Mm-hmm.

[00:10:35] Why did I think… Because the nemesis… No, never mind. All right. I'm an airplane off. I'm a crash off. I was thinking of the Edge.

[00:10:42] Yeah, the Edge was the…

[00:10:43] The receiver, the orange RX, yeah. Yeah. That's what… Okay, never mind.

[00:10:47] That's okay. But anyway, we powered up the radio, and… It worked. Everything worked. I'm not going to use it. The receiver. You're not going to use the receiver or any of that stuff.

[00:10:58] I'm not going to use the receiver.

[00:10:59] And I'm okay with throwing the switch away, even though it appears to be okay. I'm just… Switches are…

[00:11:03] Which stinks, because that's an MPI switch. I like those, but… Yeah, it's a good quality switch. Yeah. I just… I don't trust them.

[00:11:09] Yeah, I don't…

[00:11:09] There's too many failure points, and I want to make it as safe as possible. Right.

[00:11:13] But those Saevox or Saevox or whatever, I will have no problem putting those, like, on a throttle on an airplane or something like that.

[00:11:21] One thing I found… Yeah, one thing I found weird, though, about when we powered up the receiver, you brought it… And I honestly didn't even notice it, that the leads were cut to… Or the antennas were cut. Yeah. Both of them.

[00:11:35] Yeah. Now, you did mention that you didn't really… I mean, the receiver was in the airplane when you got it.

[00:11:41] It was. So… I didn't touch any of that stuff.

[00:11:42] There's no way to know if those were damaged before the crash, or…

[00:11:48] I will say, if it was damaged the way it was when we looked at it before the crash, I would have noticed that, because the very end of it was hanging on just by a thread, and it was completely, like, crinkled. Yeah. But the other one looks like it's a semi-clean cut that I don't know if that was beforehand or not.

[00:12:08] Like, I don't know where that receiver started from, if it was in a crash already, if, I don't know anything about it, because that isn't anything I bought new.

[00:12:15] Yeah.

[00:12:17] So, who knows? Go on. You look like you're ready to say something.

[00:12:21] Well, I was going to say, but it's a telemetry receiver.

[00:12:23] Yeah.

[00:12:24] So, with the DX8, when that… The old Gen 1 DX8. Is telemetry capable. So, when we turned it off, obviously, the voltage at the receiver drops to nil, right? And it sends an alarm to the transmitter.

[00:12:42] Mm-hmm.

[00:12:43] And I'm pretty sure that if that receiver experiences a, a signal loss or a frame, so many… Frame drop. Yeah. You'll get some kind of a warning on the… Or a brownout. Exactly. You'll get some kind of a warning on the transmitter as well, I would think. I don't know for sure, but it definitely gave us a warning when the voltage dropped. So, I mean, you didn't get any warnings the day of the crash.

[00:13:08] I had no alarms go off, no.

[00:13:10] So, I mean, that's one indicator pointing to the fact that maybe this wasn't an electrical issue. Maybe it was a mechanical issue of some kind, which, post-mortem, I looked specifically at the elevator pushrods, and there was some binding in that setup. It's not… It wasn't, your fault. It was just a default, in my opinion, of the design. those pushrods, there was some binding on it.

[00:13:36] Maybe one of them went, like, over center or something on the pull-down elevator when you're making the turn or something, or who knows?

[00:13:43] Yeah, I have no idea.

[00:13:44] Or that excess binding may have caused excess draw, which you would have gotten an alarm.

[00:13:48] I would have gotten, yeah. So, I don't know. We will never know what happened. No. But you got the motor back.

[00:13:54] What's interesting to me, though, also, is that, did you turn the transmitter off right away after the crash?

[00:14:00] No. So, you… We left it on because I was going to go out and try and move the…

[00:14:05] Yeah, so you didn't get an alarm after the crash, either. So, that tells me the airplane was probably still powered on.

[00:14:11] Which means the battery would have still been in it. Right.

[00:14:14] Oh, that's weird. So, I'm, again, thinking that the combine must have run over it and probably pushed that battery into the dirt when it ran over the airplane.

[00:14:22] Yeah. God, wow.

[00:14:24] Hmm. So, anyway, I'm glad it's back. I'm glad we have the engine back. Yeah. I'm really glad we have the engine back.

[00:14:30] I know you are. That was your main concern. It was. So, it's here. It's good. You can do whatever you want with it. And this book is closed.

[00:14:39] We're going to clean it up, and, yep, the engine's going to live on. And the servos. Some of the servos. Nothing of Mine.

[00:14:47] All right. So, next. Oh, what else? Oh, so, we had, Richard wrote to us. He brought up a story we told in episode 76 about a friend of ours who crashed his airplane while flying around a neighborhood.

[00:15:07] Crasped it onto someone's roof. Through a tree.

[00:15:11] Well, into a tree and then onto a roof, yes. But anyway, so, Richard said, hello, Ron and Tom. I lied. He actually says, hello, Tom and Ron. Tom and Ron. I know. Tom first. I'm used to saying Ron first because,. Because you're Ron. Because I am me. But anyway, he says, hello, Tom and Ron. Thank you. I'm really enjoying your podcast and just recently listened to episode 76.

[00:15:34] Which, by the way, if you're going to write in and ask us about something that we say in an episode, please help us out by telling us the episode. And if it's something we actually say in the episode, maybe give us like a time stamp. Oh, there you go. If it's something you want us to actually listen to and respond to. Because I went back. Thank you for telling us what episode it was. Yeah. Very helpful. Because I didn't remember what episode it was.

[00:15:56] And I was able to go back and kind of figure out exactly what we said on here to make sure that we had misspoke. I had misspoken or we had misspoken. But anyway, so he said that you had mentioned that the guy crashed his plane into a tree and that it had fallen onto someone's roof. And we said that it would not be covered by his AMA membership insurance as he was not flying at an AMA club field. He goes on to say, it's my understanding that he would, at least according to this.

[00:16:22] And he gives us a link to the. Yeah, to the AMA website. The, what is it? The insurance summary that's on there. So here's my take on that. They give a lot of outs. So technically, would it be covered?

[00:16:41] Yeah, the AMA protects themselves several times.

[00:16:42] It's very legalese. it's written to be fuzzy. So just judging by the top look down, yeah, it looks like it'd be covered. However, if you read in the thing he sent us, which is the facts about AMA's insurance benefits, the third point is applies to accidents arising from the modeling activities of model aircraft, rockets, cars, and boats in accordance with the AMA national safety codes.

[00:17:11] Yeah. Now, if you want to boil that statement down into its simplest terms, let's read it like this. Applies to accidents arising from the modeling activities in accordance with the AMA national safety code. Like if you cut out all the other stuff, the qualifying.

[00:17:26] I was going to say that's pretty much what I said, but I got you. Okay. I understand where you're going now. Sure.

[00:17:30] It would be easy to miss that little point right there, but in accordance with.

[00:17:34] So I went and found the AMA National Model Aircraft Safety Code effective January 1st, 2018. Here's their out. It says, as an AMA member, I agree. The first bullet point, I will not fly a model aircraft in a careless or reckless manner.

[00:17:54] That's out number one. So the AMA gives themselves an out by saying, hey, what? You were flying your aircraft in a careless and or reckless manner, which we are not covering.

[00:18:05] By the way, I would agree with. Yeah. Flying around the neighborhood to where you could lose your airplane of that magnitude, of that size that he was flying, I would consider careless and or reckless.

[00:18:17] Which, funny enough, is addressed in point number four on the same page. It says, I will avoid flying directly over unprotected people, moving vehicles, and occupied structures.

[00:18:29] Occupied structures, which houses would be an occupied structure. Granted, yes, you lost some sort of signal. Something happened to the airplane, but still you were close enough to where.

[00:18:42] Yeah. Combine that with the first bullet point. Mm-hmm. And you're pretty much doomed. Oh, but wait, there's more.

[00:18:50] The very last one. I will use an established safety line to separate all model aircraft operations from spectators and bystanders. Yeah. So here we go again.

[00:19:01] So you have three strikes and you're out.

[00:19:03] So I think that is enough to kind of cover them to make them say I'm not going to cover it.

[00:19:11] But I will say that Richard is, he's right on the money when he says that, we mentioned that the guy crashed a plane and a train and followed into someone's roof would not be covered by AMA membership insurance as he was not flying at an AMA club field. Correct.

[00:19:28] Yes.

[00:19:28] But it would not be covered for these other reasons that we just mentioned.

[00:19:33] Yeah. So, AMA. So, Richard, you're right. You're absolutely right.

[00:19:35] We misspoke. But the end result is the same.

[00:19:40] But the reasoning behind of not being covered, we were incorrect in saying why. Exactly. So, yes, you can fly other places as long as it is in accordance to their codes, safety codes, and all that kind of stuff. So, there we go.

[00:19:52] Exactly right. So thanks, Richard, for pointing that out. We always appreciate good quality feedback. And that was good quality feedback.

[00:20:00] Thank you.

[00:20:01] It's the kind of stuff that keeps us honest.

[00:20:02] -huh. All right. So what are we going to talk about? Ready to get on to the main topic today that you will talk about and I might fall asleep. Oh, I'm kidding.

[00:20:10] I'm not going to fall asleep. It's not exciting. It's not glamorous. It's not. But unfortunately, it's a necessary evil.

[00:20:17] That's the words I was going to go for. Necessary evil that you might not be excited to listen to. You might not want to talk about. But you need to know this.

[00:20:25] And a lot of our listeners, who fly electrics will never have to worry about this topic ever.

[00:20:32] You and your wife came out this weekend for lunch on Sunday and we were kind of talking about what to talk about today. And I loved it because she brought up the fact that we should talk about how to do it on an electric airplane. So that if you decide to change it over later to glow or gas, it's already done. I wish you could have seen your face. I mean, that made me laugh so hard. What did it look like? Show me. Right? That's pretty much exactly right. That's exactly it.

[00:21:03] Why would anyone take a perfectly good electric airplane and then convert it to gas or glow?

[00:21:08] I agree with that one. However, I'm going to go over how to fuel proof an electric airplane first and then we can move on to glow and gas. Okay. You don't. You don't. Because electric is clean. It's so far superior to anything else. Oh, boy.

[00:21:25] Yeah. Okay.

[00:21:25] I'm off my soapbox.

[00:21:26] Now go on. Fuel proofing. Fuel proofing. That's the topic, by the way. We didn't say that. But yeah. Fuel proofing is the topic this evening.

[00:21:34] Fool. Fuel proofing your airplane.

[00:21:37] Yeah. So, yeah. Not glamorous and not necessary for electric airplanes.

[00:21:44] No.

[00:21:44] And I would not advise doing it to an electric airplane just in the off chance that you may convert it to glow someday.

[00:21:51] I hope she doesn't listen to this.

[00:21:52] Even though it seems like it would be not a bad idea. And really the reason is most electric airplanes aren't designed to handle the vibration and the weight of a glow engine. True. Yeah. For gas.

[00:22:07] Because electric is so smooth, so much smoother, so much, I mean, just streamlined, you can build airplanes lighter.

[00:22:15] I'll just let you go.

[00:22:17] You can build airplanes lighter and make them just far superior. But any whoozle, go on. I'm finished.

[00:22:24] All right. So, fuel proofing your airplane. Why should you do it?

[00:22:28] Why should you do it?

[00:22:29] Well, fuel has oil in it, right? Even the fuel that we use in our gassers, it has oil in it.

[00:22:35] It's added to it.

[00:22:37] Right. So, what oil does is it soaks into the wood of the airframe and it does nasty things like it prevents your beautiful finish or covering from sticking to the wood. if you have an airplane that's, say, covered with monocoat, and I know a lot of our listeners have probably experienced this, especially around the landing gear area, the lower part of the airframe where all that gunk sort of collects. the covering doesn't stick.

[00:23:08] And then eventually, you're using super glue or whatever to try to get the covering to stick, to get the airplane, a little more life. But that's because of the oil and the fuel combined with some of the other chemicals that are in the fuel. It breaks down that wood, gets between the wood and the finish and prevents the finish from sticking to the wood. So, that's one thing that's bad.

[00:23:26] Does it do anything to the glue on the monocoat or on the covering, or is it just the balsa that gets messed up?

[00:23:32] I've seen it. I've seen nitro fuel mess with the adhesive on some materials. Like, monocoat is – I've never seen it get gummy, but I've seen Hangar 9's Ultra Coat. I've seen it get kind of a gummy after being exposed to the oil and the fuel. So, yeah, not only the airframe, but also the cover. Gummy ain't good. Gummy's not good. Unless you – never mind.

[00:23:55] So, something else that can happen, and this is the big one, is that there's something in the oil and the fuel that will break down the adhesive that you use to glue your wooden parts together. And it doesn't – like, it's been my experience, it doesn't matter what adhesive you use, be it epoxy, CA, my favorite, yellow glue. Or what is that called? Alephatic resin.

[00:24:21] There you go.

[00:24:22] Sig Bond, which is alephatic resin. Sig Mint, which is actually the old school modeling cement. It's like a – I don't even know what's in it, to be honest, but it's kind of similar to plastic model, the glue, like the testers.

[00:24:37] Oh, yeah.

[00:24:37] Yeah, something – whatever that compound is. They all are affected by whatever is in our nitro fuel. And I suspect it's probably the oil combined with the alcohol – or not the alcohol, but the nitromethane. It breaks down that glue. And it doesn't matter, like I said, it doesn't matter what glue it is. Because over time, that chemical combined with the vibration from our engines and things like that does nasty things to glue joints.

[00:25:06] The worst of which is, breaks them free.

[00:25:10] Does it mess with the glue or does it mess with the balsa? I mean, like I –

[00:25:14] Well, it soaks into the balsa, right?

[00:25:16] Yeah.

[00:25:16] And then, like, so once the balsa is saturated, it breaks down, I guess, maybe the fiber, with the vibration and stuff. And then the glue loses its grip.

[00:25:26] Okay.

[00:25:26] So, epoxy doesn't break down, but I've seen, like, Sigbond, like the aliphatic resins. I've actually seen that stuff get kind of gummy, too, where the glue joints are.

[00:25:35] Okay.

[00:25:35] So, it dissolves or it interferes with the adhering properties of the glue. And you lose your glue joints, basically. Your airplane just kind of comes apart.

[00:25:47] And then the only thing holding it together –

[00:25:49] That's not good because, yeah, that would be the covering, which then is not going to be sticking for very long if it's sticking at all.

[00:25:55] So, yeah.

[00:25:56] Yeah. So, it does that. And, also a fuel-soaked or an oil-soaked airplane is heavier than a non-oil-soaked airplane. And when you're only dealing with an airplane that weighs maybe three pounds, an extra half a pound is, a large percentage over and above what the airplane weighed originally. So, the flying qualities tend to suffer. So, your airplane doesn't fly as a good as it did when it was new.

[00:26:20] Yeah, I guess I never thought about that. But, yeah, that's more stuff you're carrying around all the time because it's impregnating itself into the wood that it's just – Right. It's there.

[00:26:29] And I'm not talking specifically just for the fuel. I'm also talking about exhaust residue because there's fuel –

[00:26:36] Well, there's a lot of fuel.

[00:26:37] And oil, a lot of oil in the exhaust residue. So, anywhere that that fuel – and I'll get into this in a minute – but anywhere that fuel and that exhaust is going to touch should be fuel-proofed or coated in some way. Make sense?

[00:26:51] It does.

[00:26:51] So, that's why you should do it.

[00:26:54] That's why you should protect it. Always protected.

[00:26:56] And then there's a few ways that you can go about actually accomplishing it. What I like the best, I like epoxy. You can thin epoxy with isopropyl alcohol and get it to a really thin brushing consistency. And I brush it right on the airframe everywhere. Fuel could potentially touch it. Like if you have a – for instance, a fuel tank that leaks, it happens.

[00:27:22] Yeah.

[00:27:22] And anywhere that fuel is going to touch, I give it a good coating. Certainly, the firewall, the front of the firewall, the back of the firewall, all the holes in the firewall ought to be coated as well.

[00:27:35] So, it should all be drilled beforehand before you do that? Yeah.

[00:27:38] Okay. Ideally, it would be like one of the last things you do with the exception of fuel-proofing as you build, which I'll talk about that in a second. But, yeah, the front side of the firewall, the back side, anywhere, the tank compartment. And I like to go ahead and, if I can, if I'm not being lazy, I like to go farther back in the fuselage, too. Because, if you have an airplane sitting on the gear on the ground, chances are it's in a nose-high attitude.

[00:28:03] And if you're fueling the tank and you have a leaky tank or you have a tank burst, that fuel is going to run down the bottom of the fuselage. So, I go ahead and give the, the entire bottom of the fuselage a coating, if, like I said, if I'm not being lazy. Really? Most of the time, I'm being lazy.

[00:28:18] Now, does that add a lot of weight or is that kind of negligible?

[00:28:21] I'm getting to that. Okay.

[00:28:23] I'm sorry.

[00:28:24] But if you do it right, it adds a negligible amount of weight. And when I say do it right, I mean thin it a lot. Right.

[00:28:29] And what is the, the thinning just makes it an actual thinner layer that's easier to spread then?

[00:28:34] Well, most of the thinner will evaporate off, leaving just the solids behind. And if you're starting with a thin mixture, you're not putting a lot of solids on it. You're just putting enough on there to put a coating to protect. Actually, you just want the solids to soak into the airframe so that nothing else can soak into the airframe. Make sense?

[00:28:50] Yeah.

[00:28:51] Okay.

[00:28:51] So, it adds very minimal weight if you, if you thin whatever it is you're going to use.

[00:28:55] Anyway, like I said, I, I like to use epoxy, but you don't have to use epoxy. You can use polyurethane, like the regular old clear polyurethane that you can buy at Lowe's or whatever, the water-based stuff. That actually is fuel-proof. A lot of people don't know that. But the, the, the trick is, or the key is you have to let that stuff cure. And it takes a lot of time for that polyurethane to cure. And when I say time, I'm talking like days, weeks.

[00:29:21] In the right conditions, yeah, a week, two weeks. As long as it's fully cured, it will be, I'll say somewhat, fuel-proof. It will be fuel-proof enough.

[00:29:32] Much better than nothing.

[00:29:33] For our purposes.

[00:29:34] Yeah, exactly. Now, is that, can you use the, are you talking like the, the spray-on kind, the aerosols?

[00:29:39] You can use that if you want to. I'm not a big fan of the aerosols because you can't control how much thinner is in it. So.

[00:29:46] But that's usually a lot thinner to begin with.

[00:29:48] Yeah, but it also has propellant in it. So they can, they can get away with making it thicker so you can do it in one coat, right? So.

[00:29:55] Okay.

[00:29:56] I prefer to brush it on. That's just me.

[00:29:58] And here's another. And full strength too, by the way?

[00:30:00] The polyurethane, I'll thin also.

[00:30:02] Okay.

[00:30:02] Especially the acrylic stuff, you can thin it with water. Oh. Handy-dandy, right?

[00:30:06] There you go.

[00:30:07] Here's another little trick. The, the, well, you can do this with epoxy. Well, you can do this with pretty much all of these types of things. You can tint them. So if you want to, let's say I want my firewall to be black, let's say. Well, I can add black to my epoxy or my polyurethane or whatever with a compatible component and turn it into a kind of a paint.

[00:30:29] And then I'm doing, I'm knocking down two birds with one stone by fuelproofing and also making it the right color. Now, I don't do my entire inside of my fuselage that way, but certainly on a firewall.

[00:30:42] What kind of paint?

[00:30:43] So if I'm using, well, you can also use latex house paint. Another little trick that a lot of people don't know, latex is actually fuelproof also. Well, latex paint, I should say. Same thing, you have to let it cure. I mean, it takes a lot of time for that paint to cure, but it will cure eventually. So you can use like a latex black house paint and fuelproof your firewall with it.

[00:31:06] And if you really want to make it look slick, you can give it a light coat of black latex, and then you go over that with a light coat of the epoxy, and then you get the nice shiny glass smooth surface like what you got on the, that I complimented you on, on the firewall of the, of the telemaster.

[00:31:21] Telemaster, yeah.

[00:31:22] I'm not sure what the process you used, but it's nice and shiny and glossy.

[00:31:26] That was regular paint, just like hobby type paint, like I think acrylic or something like that that I painted on. Yeah. And I was happy with that until you saw it and said, you need to fuelproof that.

[00:31:37] And I'm like, oh yeah, this is gas. So what we're talking about is like the craft paint that you bought like at Michael's or

[00:31:43] Hobby Lobby or whatever.

[00:31:45] Stuff that people use like the acrylic water-based stuff. Yeah.

[00:31:48] Yeah.

[00:31:49] That's why I said it needed fuelproofing.

[00:31:51] Yes. Well, I, I, I didn't even, I didn't even think about it, honestly, because I do so little with, with nitro and with that kind of stuff that I just. Yeah.

[00:31:58] So then you coated it with.

[00:32:00] So then it was thinned epoxy. Yeah. And I used a 30 minute epoxy because I didn't want to be, I didn't want to be rushed.

[00:32:05] Yeah.

[00:32:05] And then, yeah, thinned it down with stuff and mix it and we're good.

[00:32:09] So anyway.

[00:32:10] Brushed it on and it's cured.

[00:32:12] Yep. Those are, those are some of the things you can use. And like I said, the, like the clear poly, the clear acrylic polyurethanes. I think they're in the, usually in the furniture refinishing section of whatever home, improvement store you happen to go to.

[00:32:29] Oh, they're with all the stains.

[00:32:30] Yeah, exactly. that's a great, that's a great fuel proofer. And then, like I said, you can add, you can add a little bit of tint to it and make it, make it color. That's a, that's a good one to use. And it's not very expensive. Epoxy can get kind of expensive, but, it's in my opinion, the best. That's what I like to use.

[00:32:47] Well, if you're not doing a lot of it, then I mean, it's really not, it's not that bad price wise. You're not doing a whole airframe.

[00:32:54] Well, and you're going to, and I thin it so much that, just a tiny little bit is usually enough. By the time I thin it, I've got quite a nice volume of it and I've got enough to.

[00:33:03] So when you say thin it a lot, so let's, let's quantify that. So I know it's going to be hard to say like two to one, three to one, whatever your mixture is, but we know when we mix up epoxy, how thick it is. Like we know how viscous it is. It's very thick. How much do you thin that down? Is there anything you can kind of.

[00:33:20] I thin it to the point where it, where it looks like chocolate milk.

[00:33:26] Okay, good. So that gives us all something.

[00:33:28] It's not quite to 1%, but it's whole chocolate milk. Yeah. It, it just is a little bit thicker than, well, water.

[00:33:35] It's still pourable. It still will self level quickly. Yes. Yeah.

[00:33:38] That's about the consistency I'm looking for.

[00:33:41] Okay. When I, when I do it. So, yeah.

[00:33:43] So those are some of the things you can use a little, little tip. I use the epoxy brushes and I trim the bristles back so that they're kind of stiff. And then I use that to, to brush on the epoxy. The other paints you can, you can, pretty much use whatever you like. But I really like those epoxy brushes because if you use epoxy, it cures nice and hard. And then you can just throw it in the trash and it's safe for the environment.

[00:34:06] I just used a, what was it? The, the foam, the disposable foam brushes. I love those things because you can use them for everything and you're right. Just pitch them when you're done.

[00:34:16] Let the stuff cure on them and then throw them away and you're, you're good to go.

[00:34:20] And it's like a bag of 10 of them is a buck. I mean, you can't go wrong. Yep.

[00:34:25] So yeah, that's what you can use. And then, I mentioned where, where you should do it. And I, and I touched on it, but as you're building your, let's say the fuselage, you can do actually some fuel proofing before, especially if you're using epoxy. Well, pretty much only if you're using epoxy because epoxy sticks to epoxy, like nobody's business and sticks really, really well, especially if you rough it up a little bit.

[00:34:51] But if, once a fuselage is built, a lot of those areas are kind of hard to get to, especially like on the, in the corners of the inside corners of the firewall where they meet the fuselage or, maybe the, the former aft of wherever the tank is, some of those upper corners might be hard to get to do yourself a favor and fuel proof those areas before you glue the fuselage together. It's okay.

[00:35:14] That like, once you glue those pieces together, I mean, if you're using epoxy, epoxy, especially it will stick together, even though there may be a thin coat of epoxy underneath it. And so that's one little trick you can use to, to get, fuel proofing where you need it. But not necessarily with CA, like if you're using super glue. CA sticks to epoxy pretty darn good too.

[00:35:36] But does it, but so it wouldn't like soak into the, the balsa though?

[00:35:40] No, it won't. It'll only stick to the epoxy, which is why, it's important to rough it up. To rough it up a little bit. But epoxy on epoxy is, is strong, strong stuff.

[00:35:48] So, so I guess what I'm saying though, is you're okay doing it with, with the CA glue though?

[00:35:52] Yeah. Okay. Yep. Yep. I've had, I've had no issues with that. And just like I said, as long as, as long as the, it's not a glass smooth surface that you're trying to stick CA to, rough it up a little bit.

[00:36:04] What about your…

[00:36:04] Because this epoxy is going to soak into the wood. So if you rough it up on the surface, you're not doing it any harm.

[00:36:09] What about your aliphatic resin stuff?

[00:36:12] Now that I, I, I tend to not do that with that kind of stuff. If I'm going to build my fuselage and I'm being really, really patient, I'll go ahead and take the extra step and just, not have anything in the way of my aliphatic resin

[00:36:25] For it to do its job and then I'll feel proof later. Okay.

[00:36:28] Yeah. So just check it. Anyway, if you're using epoxy, yeah, you can do yourself, make, make things easier by kind of pre fuel proofing before you join all those parts together.

[00:36:39] But yeah, basically, like I said, anywhere that fuel could potentially touch it or exhaust residue, I'm talking landing gear area, that bottom of the fuselage area where everything kind of seems to collect and soak in, you want to make sure you get those things good and fuel proofed.

[00:36:56] And that's kind of one of the reasons too, when you cover, not just because of the, the air that's constantly hitting it, why you want to do it to where you're overlapping, you're covering to where it's the, you're working from the back to the front of the airplane. Exactly. Otherwise your oils and stuff can very easily get through it if it's covered from front to back. That make sense? Did I say that right?

[00:37:18] Well, yeah. You're talking about the seams, like wherever covering overlaps, you want that, that joint to face aft.

[00:37:25] Right.

[00:37:26] Yeah. Yep. So there you go. so some of the tips I've, come across over the, over the years, like I said, you can fuel proof as you build, it's easier to get into tight spots, before they, are impossible to get to once they're assembled, use epoxy. If you're going to do the fuel proofing, so that's your, that's your preferred method.

[00:37:48] You can do other ways, but epoxy works the best for you.

[00:37:50] Epoxy for me is the best. It seems to last. I don't know if it, if I would say that it lasts longer. It's just the airframe seems to last longer. If I've used epoxy, maybe it does a better job.

[00:38:01] Maybe. Maybe. Yeah.

[00:38:02] But, and then, yeah, I use the cheap throwaway brushes like you mentioned. And then, yeah, then whatever you plan to paint on your airframe, so that the, so that whatever thinner you're using will evaporate off and leaving just the solids. So you're not adding a lot of weight.

[00:38:18] When you're mixing the color with the epoxy though, you're actually mixing it in with the epoxy. Yep. And that doesn't mess with anything.

[00:38:25] I've done it a couple of times, and black works great. and I've used the, the water-based artists. It's acrylic paint or whatever, just a few drops. It doesn't take much in there because it's water-based. It doesn't seem to interfere too much with, with the properties of the epoxy. It cures just fine.

[00:38:45] Mm-hmm.

[00:38:46] As long as you don't go overboard with it, I think, I think you can tint it with that. And I've had, I've had no problems with that. In fact, the firewall and stuff that's on the little white airplane back here, that's exactly what I did.

[00:38:56] Hmm.

[00:38:56] Yeah. I just took white acrylic paint and mixed it in with my epoxy fuel proofer and painted it right on there.

[00:39:03] Awesome. Well, there you go. Now how to fuel proof. That's fuel proofing.

[00:39:07] Maybe in a future episode, we'll talk about an airframe maybe that is already past the point of fuel proofing and maybe what you can do to bring it back to life maybe. But that'll be another episode.

[00:39:17] Okay. Well, now that you said that, we have to make a note somewhere so we actually remember to do it.

[00:39:22] Yeah. Because somebody out there will probably call us out on it. Mm-hmm.

[00:39:25] And that's okay. Which reminds me, I got a message on Facebook from, from a gentleman. If you remember a long time ago, we talked about the sandpiper and I said, well, we'll draw up the plans and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. I forgot all about it, to be honest. he wanted to know where he could find the plans for it. yeah, it's not done.

[00:39:45] Okay.

[00:39:45] So, it will be done, I think, next episode, we might be talking about-

[00:39:48] Well, it has to be done now, because, you just said it.

[00:39:50] Well, that's why I said it, because it's kind of holding my feet to the fire now. So, I'm, I'm, yeah, I want to make sure I get it done. but it should be done and uploaded to the website next, by next episode, and we should be able to probably talk about that. Okay. we don't do a lot with foam, but maybe talk about Profile Foamies or something like that.

[00:40:07] So, if anybody has tips or anything they want to talk about with building Profile Foamies, go ahead and send them in to us.

[00:40:13] I'm a complete novice when it comes to Profile Foamies, so anything I can learn from any of you listening would be, would be awesome and welcome.

[00:40:21] Yeah. Cause,.

[00:40:22] I mean, the electric issues, I'm, I've got you to lean on, but as far as like airframes and cool little tips and tricks for hooking up your control surfaces or whatever

[00:40:34] Else. Yeah.

[00:40:35] Any tips you guys could share with me would be awesome. Cause honestly, Foam is fun for its purpose. Yeah. It really is. Like, you've got 10 minutes this evening before you got to head off to a, girls volleyball team game or whatever.

[00:40:52] Random, but okay.

[00:40:53] Well, it's just on the top of my head cause one of my coworkers is doing that.

[00:40:57] Oh, doing that. Okay. I wonder where that came from. Yeah.

[00:40:58] If you got 10 spare minutes, Foam is great because you can just throw a battery in it and go outside in your case, right outside your back door and give it a toss and you've got some flying done.

[00:41:08] And the heck, if you find simple enough plans, 10 minutes is almost enough to put it together.

[00:41:14] And the sandpiper actually, for what it is, it flies pretty good.

[00:41:18] Yeah.

[00:41:18] It is a lot of fun.

[00:41:19] It is. So that'll be next week. Okay. Or next, oh, next two weeks, next episode.

[00:41:24] Next episode. Well, actually the next episode will be what would be tomorrow's episode, right? Oh, you're confusing me.

[00:41:30] Our next new episode, will be that. Yes. So, all right. Cool. Cool. that's all I got. Yeah. That's all I got too. So I, I'm finished. Okay. Me too. All right. Thanks everybody for listening. Yep. until next time, I'm Ron. I'm Tom. Good night. Good night.

[00:41:46] We hope you enjoyed this episode of the RC Planelab podcast. For topic suggestions, to ask questions, or to give any feedback, 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.