Indoor Duration Tips & Tricks
from many sources
This page contains various techniques and items that I have read on the web, in newsletters, or been shown to make building and flying indoor models easier. This list of tips is all the input and work of others and I had no hand in them other than publishing them here.
Keeping Plug-in tailbooms and wingposts from slipping:
Steve Brown gave me the tip of using repositionable-glue-stick (from 3m in a blue tube) on loose wingposts. It also works quite well on tailboom plugins.
As posted by John Kagan on the Indoor mailing list
Applying boron with minimum weight gain:
I put some ambroid on a paper towel and run the boron through it. After it dries I repeat. Then I jig the boom form with the previously rolled/seemed tube in my jig setup and once the boron position is satisfactory run some acetone and it is done.
It looks very bad if the boron is not straight and the jig where the boron is tensioned constantly is the only way to do it.
As posted by Vladimir Linardic on the Indoor mailing list
Drilling holes for tissue tubes
This is a tip from Ray Harlan.
I've had troubles with twist drill bits, brad point bits, and home made spade bits. If I wasn't really careful the wood would get crushed or torn rather than cutting a nice round hole in motorsticks and booms.
Get a piece of thin walled tubing with the outside diameter the same size as the hole you want to drill. Alternatively, you can use a smaller diameter tubing and use a file or something to enlarge the hole.
Anyway, sharpen the edge of the tubing by using a small tapered stone, a file/reamer, a countersink, or even a knife blade (if the material is relatively soft).Sharpen the *inside* of the tube. Put the sharpened edge against the tube (or whatever) that you want to drill the hole in, and twist and apply gentle pressure to the tube. It should cut a perfect hole. If the holes start to get a little ragged, then sharpen the tube again.
As posted to the indoor mailing list by Marty Sasaki
Drilling holes for tissue tubes
Here's another one (I forgot where I got it from):
- scrape some grit off a piece of sandpaper
- put a little CA on the tip of a toothpic and roll it in the grit
You now have a reamer that will sand/cut a nice hole in thin wood.
Posted in response to the above by John Kagan.
Drilling holes for tissue tubes
A trick picked up from aerospace techs: They used triangular deburring tools, usually made from triangular files for all sorts of things.
I scaled them down, using 1/16 music wire 3-6" long with the triangle being 1/4 to 1/2" long. Short triangles were good for chamfering, deburring and marking hole centers. Long ones made excellent drills for soft material.
Posted in response to the above by Hermann Andresen.
Drilling holes for tissue tubes
Hi eveyone, I cannot believe what I see about drilling holes in motor sticks, to take tissue tubes for wing posts!
All you need is a Swiss needle file, and you grind off the point to a saucer/round shape. You shorten the length until the diameter of the hole fits the diameter of your tissue tube! Mark where you want the hole on the moror stick, and push in a modelling pin at that point. Using an undoctered Swiss needle file to open the hole up enough to allow the ground tip version to enter. Rotate the file in your fingers, and when the file hits the bottom of the tube (But not through it!) if you have ground the end off as it should be, then the tube will fit perfectly. Using a square, mark off 2 parellel lines at right angles to your bench which are the spacing for your wing posts. Lay the posts along these two lines, and weight down with something flat and heavy (Steel rule etc) {put a spot off glue down into the hole and also some on the end of the wing posts. Slide the posts in and leave to dry. Sometimes it is easier to do 1 post at a time. You will have piosts that are exactly in line front side and front view.
It has worked for me since 1970, and I have never had a failure of structure yet.
Posted in response to the above by Laurie Barr Archbishop of Cardington , FSMAE & B.H.A.
Replacing center compression ribs
This is something Marty Sasaki read somewhere (if you know the source please let me know)
Rather than using a center compression rib try this. Make the wingposts (unbraced) or the wingpost sockets (braced) just a bit further apart than the wing chord. The result will be that the center rib will be pulled flatter. Then glue on a piece of wire, boron, or kevlar under tension to pull the rib back into the proper camber. This is a hint that I read from Bob Randolph somewhere, maybe Model Aviation.
