fozjared

tonight i started on a spad project i have been wanting to get going for quite some time.. i went to spadtothebone.com to do a crash course as this is my first spad to build (i have one now that i had given to me) most of the recommendations on the planes were saying to use medium ca, so i did.. it was working pretty well and all, up until i folded the top portion of the wing to the bottom portion, the pull of the coroplast kept pulling the glue apart in places, so i used a trick that i have used before on the plastic on my dirt bike.. i used a pencil size/shape butane torch (doesn't have to be pencil shaped obviously, just easier to handle than the cylinder) you can buy these pencil torches at attwoods or tractor supply co. for around 2 bucks, well worth it!! back to the story, i took the torch and my xacto knife and heated the plastic to melting point (kinda ugly, made burn holes in places) and then mixed the plastic of the wing pieces together and it was like one solid piece of plastic, just like on my dirt bike!!

for those of you who fly spads, well for anyone really.. this is a big gasser (39cc) spad so i made the wing 84" x 16.5" x 2" and i made the horizontal stabilizer 11" x 32" (including elevator) no airfoil, and the rudder/vertical stab 12" x 4"at top and 8" at bottom (tapered on the leading edge) and the fuselage 64"

so 84" ws 64" fuse and 11x32 horz. stab. will that fly well with a 39cc engine (magneta ignition left on)?

my main question actually is how on earth am i gonna be able to keep the tail feathers from shaking to pieces from flutter? how can i stabilize the stabilizers?

thanks for the help and i hope that the info on plastic "welding" can be used by some, it turned out extremely strong for me!

FrancisPerson

Fozjared,

Flame flashing coroplast before using CA is the strongest bond. Please see the folowing thread.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_26...tm.htm#2690498

Thanks

Francis

Deadeye

Woodpeckering the coro and polyurethane glue gives the strongest coro to coro bond, IMO. If your tail feathers are just the thickness of the coro, you will have problems. On the pictired gasser, I ripped a yardstick in half and used that as a spar for the tail feathers. I then doubled over the coro, much like a wing is built. If you are too far along in the build, you could try to embed hard points in the tail and use tail braces, but I don't think I would ever trust single thickness coro on a bird that size.