April 2020 – Frédéric Zamit

Workshop: Boring Table for the Drill Stand

Model making constantly requires drilling holes that are perpendicular to the work piece’s plane. To bore at right angles by eyesight doesn’t sound too difficult, but one has to observe two right angles at the same time and that tends to be a tad difficult with just two eyes.

Salvation comes in the shape of a drill press, or for those to be short a bob or two, a drill stand which guides the power drill. Alas, most of the latter don’t have a boring table, so bigger work pieces tend to wobble and one can’t fixate them either. And just maybe one would like to use a gauge or stop in order to facilitate repeated drilling?

Joyrider: Linkage

The ailerons' linkage is finished.

As soon as the tailplane’s servos fitting-out was done I busied myself with the linkage. To start off with, I made a few errors which had to be corrected. I will describe those errors as well as the solutions, so perhaps somebody can learn from my mistakes.

Since I’m not too sure what forces I will have to account for, I’m erring on the safe side. At any rate, I reproduced the linkage used with the Easy Glider and chose a combination of 1 mm steel rod, 2-to-1 mm and 3-to-2 mm bowden tubes.

Joyrider: Fitting the Servos

The servos are fixed in place.

Fitting the engine has sent my motivation soaring, so to speak. So I launched myself at fiting the servos.

Alas, I soon realized that my “planless” construction made my life a tad more difficult. In order to soundly fit the servos, the fuselage has to be reinforced and strutted. I had partially anticipated this and thus constructed the belly with very few slats. Nevertheless I’ve come to realize that one’s way better off if the servo mounting’s fixture is built into the fuselage from the get-go.

Workshop: Finishing the Cross Cut Sled and Accessories

Length stop for cross cut sled.

The cross cut sled is assembled, but not precisely adjusted, yet. This calls for patience and precise work, as I’ve learned from painful experience. In total, I needed six attempts until I was satisfied with the results. However, I am now!

Via Michael Truppe’s video channel “Let’s Bastel” I learned about the fice-cut-test. This was apparently invented by William Ng, who demonstrates and elaborates on the underlying principles it in a youtube video. Truppe summarizes it in german.

Joyrider: Fitting the Engine

The motor is mounted.

By assembling the tailplane the construction is finally finished, so now it’s out-fitting the model. As a matter of fact that’s already started since I fitted the aileron servos while building the upper wing.

I’m going to work my way through the fuselage from nose to tail. So today’s topic is set: the engine has to be fitted.