Cycleops
Legendary Member
- Location
- Accra, Ghana
Wasn't there a more powerful version which used two pellets?
Traditional balsa wood free flight aeroplanes.
- Thread starter chriswoody
- Start date
-
- Tags
- planes
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Landsurfer
Veteran
Well ... I build and fly control line team race aircraft out of balsa ... and Carbon fibre ....
Goodyear, Mini Goodyear and Vintage A and B ....
Engines are all new and Vintage NOS PAW diesels from Tony in Macclesfield ....
And free flight ... Little Little Vagabond and Tomboy airframes with DC and PAW .8cc engines and rudder R/C.
They fly about 20mph ..while my grandsons FPV Freestyle drones punt around at 140 - 160 Kph !!!
Goodyear, Mini Goodyear and Vintage A and B ....
Engines are all new and Vintage NOS PAW diesels from Tony in Macclesfield ....
And free flight ... Little Little Vagabond and Tomboy airframes with DC and PAW .8cc engines and rudder R/C.
They fly about 20mph ..while my grandsons FPV Freestyle drones punt around at 140 - 160 Kph !!!
midlife
Guru
Mine had 2 pellets, lighting was a real faff and involved winding some wire covered in gunpowder type stuff into a spiral, placing it against the pellet and trailing the wire out of the tiny exhaust hole. And then doing it again when it didn't light lol
Bought some rockets a couple of year ago which were ignited by a battery
Cycleops
Legendary Member
- Location
- Accra, Ghana
Had no idea Progress Aero Works were still producing Diesel engines.
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Cycleops
Legendary Member
- Location
- Accra, Ghana
I always remember that scene from the original ‘ Flight of the Phoenix’ in which the German guy who said he was an aeronautical engineer had finished all the mods for the plane to get them out of the desert and someone asked him which company he worked for and he replied it was one producing model planes. The horrified reaction was along the lines of: ’You mean to say you only worked on toy aircraft’.
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T4tomo
Legendary Member
My grown-up (but child at heart) neighbour had one of those when I was a kid. I seem remember a lot more prep and faffing time than flying time
OP
OP
chriswoody
Legendary Member
- Location
- Northern Germany
So time to report on some progress on my modest attempts. I'd got hold of some dress making pins and a few other sundries and my son was champing at the bit to get started!
So we decided to have a go at some small fuselage formers to get our hand in and get a feel for working with the balsa. With the pilot, the fuselage is built free of the plans, but still needs to be pinned to a cork board for accuracy. The pieces are all pre cut with a laser and all thats left holding them to the main balsa sheet is a small nub of balsa. A quick cut with a scalpel blade soon has them free and a quick brush with sandpaper removes the balsa lugs.
Pinning the pieces to the board helps line them up and keep the hole centred.
For this piece, I used a steel right angle to line up the strengthener pieces onto the former. The V shaped one will locate the wings, so I needed to scrape out any excess glue from inside the v in case of it interfering with the fit of the wings later. We're actually scraping off any excess glue that spurts out in order to keep the weight down, or at least thats what the instructions are telling me!
With two formers made, my son wanted to build a wheel, which are constructed from a laminate of three round discs and then sanded to shape. In order to keep the axle hole aligned we used a 3mm drill bit to build the wheel over.
After the glue's dried we just need to sand it into a wheel shape, but that's for later.
So that's it for now, baby steps and all that, but it's progress and fun progress at that.
So we decided to have a go at some small fuselage formers to get our hand in and get a feel for working with the balsa. With the pilot, the fuselage is built free of the plans, but still needs to be pinned to a cork board for accuracy. The pieces are all pre cut with a laser and all thats left holding them to the main balsa sheet is a small nub of balsa. A quick cut with a scalpel blade soon has them free and a quick brush with sandpaper removes the balsa lugs.
Pinning the pieces to the board helps line them up and keep the hole centred.
For this piece, I used a steel right angle to line up the strengthener pieces onto the former. The V shaped one will locate the wings, so I needed to scrape out any excess glue from inside the v in case of it interfering with the fit of the wings later. We're actually scraping off any excess glue that spurts out in order to keep the weight down, or at least thats what the instructions are telling me!
With two formers made, my son wanted to build a wheel, which are constructed from a laminate of three round discs and then sanded to shape. In order to keep the axle hole aligned we used a 3mm drill bit to build the wheel over.
After the glue's dried we just need to sand it into a wheel shape, but that's for later.
So that's it for now, baby steps and all that, but it's progress and fun progress at that.
Mark Grant
Acting Captain of The St Annes Jombulance.
- Location
- Hanworth, Middx.
It is but a small part of my fleet!
OP
OP
chriswoody
Legendary Member
- Location
- Northern Germany
So I've been busy messing around with the Moth these last evenings. The kit starts with the fuel tank that sits between the upper wings. It's easy start, but you still need to be careful that everything lines up nice and precisely. Cutting out the parts from the Balsa sheet, you can see how precise the parts are due to the laser cutting process.
Assembled together on the plan.
After the fuel tank comes the wings and you start with the left wing which is assembled from a multitude of parts.
Both sets of wings on the Moth have dihedral to them, so this is set using a small angled piece, against which you align the inner rib. There are four alignment tools in all, the bottom wings having a different angle to the top, so the tools are marked up before removing them from the Balsa sheet.
The fiddliest part of all, was cutting, shaping and gluing in of the strengthening pieces either side of the slots for the interplane struts. They are minuscule and you need to make sure to get no glue into the hole in the ribs, or else the interplane struts won't fit later on.
After I completed the left upper wing, I moved onto the right upper wing
This is where we are at now, with two almost complete upper wings and a fuel tank. They'll be all joined together much later in the build after the wings have been covered and doped. The only job left to do is sand the leading and trailing edges to the correct profile.
So a very enjoyable few evenings work, I'm liking this so far, the kit is very well made and goes together well. You need to be very slow, precise and patient in your work, but the results are looking quite good so far.
Assembled together on the plan.
After the fuel tank comes the wings and you start with the left wing which is assembled from a multitude of parts.
Both sets of wings on the Moth have dihedral to them, so this is set using a small angled piece, against which you align the inner rib. There are four alignment tools in all, the bottom wings having a different angle to the top, so the tools are marked up before removing them from the Balsa sheet.
The fiddliest part of all, was cutting, shaping and gluing in of the strengthening pieces either side of the slots for the interplane struts. They are minuscule and you need to make sure to get no glue into the hole in the ribs, or else the interplane struts won't fit later on.
After I completed the left upper wing, I moved onto the right upper wing
This is where we are at now, with two almost complete upper wings and a fuel tank. They'll be all joined together much later in the build after the wings have been covered and doped. The only job left to do is sand the leading and trailing edges to the correct profile.
So a very enjoyable few evenings work, I'm liking this so far, the kit is very well made and goes together well. You need to be very slow, precise and patient in your work, but the results are looking quite good so far.
OP
OP
chriswoody
Legendary Member
- Location
- Northern Germany
It is PVA, a small bottle with an easy pour spout provided in the kit. I've also bought some super glue for some parts and some pritt stick for when I come to apply the tissue.
Reynard
Guru
- Location
- Cambridgeshire, UK
Just be careful with the superglue - you really do need to use it in a well-ventilated area, or outside if you can. Talking from experience here, as I've been using it for my Superstox model and discovered that I was horribly allergic to it (chestiness to the point I thought I'd caught Covid, plus skin lesions...)
It's one of the reasons that model is on hiatus, as I need to find a fast-bonding alternative. 2-part epoxy is not terribly ideal when dealing with small, fiddly parts.
Cycleops
Legendary Member
- Location
- Accra, Ghana
Sorry to rain on your parade but those Guillows kits were notoriously poor. There’s no laser cut sheets, not surprising considering the age of the kit, just printed on balsa and the balsa is poor quality too if I remember correctly. To give it any chance of flying well they might have given the wings a lot of dihedral as the low wing has little stability so will look rather odd.I've got this typhoon in the garage, you have given me the impetus to find it
Those Americans should leave these leave these things to good old British firms like KeilKraft
OP
OP
chriswoody
Legendary Member
- Location
- Northern Germany
Blimey that sounds a serious reaction. I was being a bit cautious because my wife can be a sensitive to things like this as well. I've actually set up a small super glue station outside and was experimenting with glueing the Pilot's wire landing gear onto the balsa former.
I was working on my chopping block in the back garden. I put some super glue into an Acorn shell and used the pin to spread it over the parts, seemed to work quite well and thankfully no reactions. Luckily I don't need to use it too much.
