woodscra

My Feedback: (23)

I have an AW 33% plane with a foam wing and the mounting method chosen in the instructions are to put a bolt through the wing, in the tube which should have some wood in there.

What other methods, if there are any, that you have used to mount foam wings to your plane?

Thanks

phughes

Order the wing retaining bolts from desert aircraft, and skip having to drill a hole through the top of the wing . . .check them out (there is a picture you can check out in their catalog).

woodscra

My Feedback: (23)

I went to the DA web and clicked on catalog and did not see anything that pertained to wing retaining bolts.

Would you provide a little more guidance?

Thanks

Carroll-RCU

My Feedback: (43)

I am also Interested in this setup. I looked on Desert Aircraft's website and searched the online catalog and couldn't find the wing retaining bolt set up.
Carroll

midget racer

My Feedback: (7)

My lanier edge wing was originally mounted the same way as yours, i got tired of stripped aluminum tube holes, so, i fitted the wings then drilled two holes in each wing, removed the wing and tapped the hole , hardened it up with ca and put wing bolts with epoxy into each hole,then i cut off the heads of the bolts and bought 1/4 -20 wing nuts and now i slide the wings on , screw the wing nuts onto the bolts against the inside of the fuse and voila!!, over 300 flights and not a problem with it yet, and i fly it very rough.I will enter some pics here in a few minutes, Mike.

matlok

The DA retianers are pretty nice. They are not shown online; the catalog to which phughes is refering is their printed catalog. The retaniers consist of four threaded aluminum studs that have about 1/2" of non-threaded metal near the center to provide a smooth surface where the stud bears against the fuse sides. You simply glue a hardwood block into the wing root, tap it (I think it's 1/4 - 20, but don't quote me), and screw the stud into place. Inside the fuse the wing is retained by four large nylon nuts that screw on by hand.

Hope this helps!

woodscra

My Feedback: (23)

Thanks for the picture.

Have you had any issues with those white nylon wing nuts? stripping? Or more importantly vibrating off?

What glue did you use to glue in the wood block?

Did you use a 1/2" dowel or similar?

Thanks for the info, this is very helpful and I am leaning toward this technique.

rcplanefan

My Feedback: (2)

Another simple method is to imbed a piece of 1/4" (maybe 1.5" square) plywood in the wing root foam--one towards the front, the other towards the back of the root. Then put the root rib on. Finally, drill and tap 1/4 x 20 through the root rib and into the plywood. A nylon 1/4 x 20 bolt through the fuse and into the root will hold up forever. This is the method many are using on 40% Cardens around here. The nylon is nice because it will stretch a little when tightened, so it WILL NOT vibrate loose.

If you do this, it is nice to have a single anti-rotation pin in the root to set the incidence. I use 5/16" dowel 3" long back towards the back of the wing. Just leave about 1/2" sticking out of the root. This way, your 1/4x20 holes in the fuse side can be a little over-sized which makes installing the bolts much easier.

Ken

phughes

sorry for not being more specific . . .but other mebers have taken up my slack just fine! What type of hard wood do most of you use for this? Aircraft ply? or a dowel maybe? At any rate sorry for not being a little more specific on my first post.

Jemo

My Feedback: (5)

Have you ever seen this from Dick hansons site.

http://www.concentric.net/~Dhmodels/workshop9.html

woodscra

My Feedback: (23)

Tell me your thoughts on this, I have used rubber bands on a 33% before with great success:

Drill a hole for a .5" dowel, about 3-3.5" long. Glue it fully into the wing and put a cup hok in the end of the dowel for the rubberbands.

My root rib is already on.

What do you guys use that easily and neatly cuts foam?
Would polyurethane be best for gluing wood into foam?

Thanks

rcplanefan

My Feedback: (2)

Craig,

If you are cutting a pocket or something with a relatively shallow, flat bottom, you can use a router attachment on your Dremel tool (see the picture that I copied from Bob Hudson's website). Really clean job and you can square up the corners with an Exacto if need be. Or for long holes (like for a dowel), just use a sharpened brass tube and then pick out the pieces. Both will make nice, clean cuts. Just depends on what you are trying to do. If you use a 0.5 inch dowel, I would make one end pointed (chuck it up in your drill and hold it against a sanding belt at an angle). Then make your hole in the foam about 3/8 inch diameter. Finally, push the pointed dowel down into the hole in the foam to compress the foam. It will give it a nice, tight fit. You will probably have to make the hole in the root rib 1/2 inch (hard to compress balsa or light ply!). Glue it in with epoxy or probond--both work fine, probond should cure for at least 4 hours.

You can use either the rubber bands or the screws--either make a pocket with your router for some 1/4 or 3/8 inch ply drilled and tapped or use the brass tube for the dowel. I personally prefer the screws because it keeps the inside of the fuselage nice and clean. But I'm sure either would work.

Ken

phughes

Sounds fine to me . . .use a piece of brass tube sharpened on the end . . . and I would use epoxy . . .I sheed with poly, but there may be to much pressure causing the dowel to push out if not properly restrained (long shot I know, but you do not have to think about it with epoxy). If you are going thtough the trouble of putting the dowels in why not tap them for nylon bolts and do away with the hooks and rubberbands?

woodscra

My Feedback: (23)

With nylon bolts I would have to install the dowel in a place where there is strong wood on the side of the fuse. I am just not sure if the wood that is in there is strong enough to hold that pressure if I use only one bolt.

Thanks for the help guys. This gives me options.

Jemo

My Feedback: (5)

Quote:

.I sheed with poly, but there may be to much pressure causing the dowel to push out if not properly restrained (long shot I know, but you do not have to think about it with epoxy).

Not such a long shot. It can happen. I had one push out a bit, not much but it can happen. It doesn't take much to hold it in place though, I was just a bit careless with that one.

vatechguy3

My Feedback: (11)

you guys are making this sound very complicated when it doesn't need to be.
i've got an aeroworks edge with foam wings.
what i did is very simple. i bought pieces of 1/4-20 nylon all-thread. i then chucked a 9/32 brass tube(sharpened on one end) into my drill. then drill out the foam to the desired depth. i choose 8", but its up to you. fill the hole with 30 minute epoxy, and then slide the all thread in. be sure to leave enough hanging out to pull the wing in tight. i used a 1/4 ply plate on the inside of the fuse for extra strength and i use a nylon wing nut to pull it together.
had a guy put this assmebly in his hunting bow and pull it to 95 lbs. it did not pull out. thats much more load that it will every see in flight. been flying my edge this way for almost a year now with no problems. and setup at the field is under 5 minutes.
tony

CAPtain232

My Feedback: (40)

RCPLANEFAN totally nailed it. Hanson's idea is good, but the bolt on method is the best. NYLON bolts work great. Next time you're at a show and you see MAT STEK, look how he has his done..........NYLON BOLTS

phughes

All great ideas! I think the desert aircraft pins are just a way for me to get another package from the big brown truck! At any rate this was a great thread . . .it just goes to show you that there are many ways to get to the same end result!

Jemo

My Feedback: (5)

When I did my 30% Carden extra. I modified the canopy, so it was removable. This allowed me to put my wing attachments inside rather than the tube method.
I have the forward (hard to reach) one done as per Dick Hanson, it works like a charm.
The rear is done with nylon bolts.
both just have a dowel polyglued in the wing. Very secure, which is what we are all after, regardless of the method.

woodscra

My Feedback: (23)

All of this is excellent information. Thank you for all the responses.

matlok

A little late and redundant but I thought I'd answer anyway...

I hope not - I haven't finished the plane yet so I don't really know! But by the way the nuts feel I don't anticipate any problems. It's pretty tuff nylon and tightens well.

I used 30 min epoxy, plus they were put in before the liteply root cap was epoxied on.

No, although you could. I used some 1" hardwood cubes bought at a local craft store, and I tapered the top and bottom to make them more closely fit the shape of the airfoil (trapezoid shaped).

Just for the record, I "toyed" around with lots of ideas before I decided on this method. There seems to be a lot of ways to do this that all work pretty well.