Topic: 60" sloper build thread

Cheers Zim, looking forward to hearing how you get on with the little Burp.
Shaved 5ozs off the wings this evening

Wings are now glued up and weighted down in their beds till tomorrow.  Zzzzzz

When you skin a wing with ply, veneer or balsa pop it in your vac bag to cure. You'd have to work pretty quick if using PU glue though 

I bagged them one half at a time, but I think its probably easier to just put them in a press. Will press the next one and see how it goes. To be honest, I was using a bag 70" long to put a half wing (30") into, that may account for why I wasn't impressed with it, need shorter bags or longer arms.

Tonka fuselage plug

Looking good Mark  fuse looks plenty big enough to include a ballast tube 

You going to remove the top section of fuse to sit the wing in the fuse ?

The wings you skinned, are you glassing them aswell? Are you keeping the tips square? I found the finish  is much better square, no kinking of the mylar where it trys to conform to the curves.

looking niceeeeeeee

Tonka in the splitter plate.


After cutting out the Tonka shape into the wardrobe door, glued it onto some polystyrene foam. Sanded out some foam so the plug drops in at least half way, then put some dabs of plaster on the foam and press the plug into it , until it is exactly half way in. Leave it for a couple of hours to dry, its old plaster, so sets rapidly. Remove plug, give it a few coats of wax and a coat of pva mould release, let dry for a few hours. Mix up some epoxy and micro balloons, smear this all round the cut out in the splitter plate, press the plug into this until it rests on the plaster dabs, smear some more epoxy round the plug to fill any remaining gaps, then leave a couple of days to cure.

Phew, its been a busy day in the workshop.

Thanks Cactus.

Re- the skinned wings
Will bandage the centre joint with epoxy/ glass  after fitting bolt blocks and a bit of a spar, then cover with light laminating film. Going cheap quick on these planks.

Re- tonka fuse
Same idea as yours really Mike, want to experiment with sections and planforms, plus big enough fuse to take larger wings ....somewhen.  Will cut out wing section on fuse sides, and also a turtle deck, so that wings are bottom mounted and tapped on, Erwin style. Fuselage is large and one piece, so nice and easy to lay up, least I hope so. Was thinking of putting some electrical conduit through the fin somewhere to feed the tape through. Other option is a one piece plane and cut out a canopy. Most epp planks are one piece anyway, but currently I like the tape on wings best.

You put a lot of work into your splitter board.

All I do is use melimine board, trace around the plug and cut out the plug shape with a band saw. Space the splitter off the bench with a few blocks, sit the plug (doing the tape barrier trick) in the board and use plasticine under the plug to support to the right hieght. Fill any gaps between the board and plug with car body filler forcing it down between the plug and board, allow to cure, remove plug and sand filler flush. Where the filler was forced down between the board and plug will create a natural hold on the plug to hold it at the right hieght, theres no need for the plasticine then. Using carbody filler and plasticine the whole job takes less than an hour  .

Ive probably not spent any longer on it than your method, labour wise, but it is spread out over a couple of days. I do like your idea of putting tape round the plug though. Have tried using car filler before, lost nearly half of it when removing the plug, seemed to work better where the gap between plug and splitter plate was wider, but it obviously works well for you.
     Once I get the tooling coat and a thin layer of glass over the plug and splitter, and filled up the corners a little with chopped stands, I wet out the thick layers of glass on a sheet of plastic, drape them over the plug, peel ply and paper towel over and put the whole lot into a vac bag  to cure for a few hours, build up a second layer as required. Probably seems like lots of work, but I find it easier overall.

Yeah the filler can fall away if your not careful. Forcing it right in the gap allows it to get a better grip on the parting board and using melimine which is just a chip board underneath gives it a good key.

I'm just laying up the secong half of my Stinger fuse mould as I type this, nearly 3 hours at it now, one more layer and thats it for tonight. It looks to be ok but you never know until you split it open, 

Have put a glass bandage over wing centre joint after sanding, 6oz cloth, first strip 1" wide and a 3" piece over the top of that, both pieces on bias. Carved out some foam at the tips and filled with epoxy and micro balloons too. Hopefully fit the wing blocks tonight with pu glue.
    Fuse parts are out of the mould, (Burp / Hydra mould) and weigh about 14ozs, pretty substantial for a little fuselage. All the bits together weigh 39ozs at the moment, so looking like 50 ozs+ when finished.

Any pics of the beast in progress ? 

Just a pile of bits, but here ya go.

 Its coming together nicely  Looks like the first half of the mould come out fine, looks good.  Whats the pink pigment/gel coat you used for your mould?

Its Red, Polyester laminating resin thickened with colodia silica and some "red" pigment added, the whole mould is done with polyester, use it when I am feeling cheap, but actually seems to work just as well, + like the rapid cure time.

Had a nice ds session on my local hill this afternoon and early evening, wind variable from 10-15mph, not quite square on to the ridge but it was working never the less.
   Was flying my Nitro (50ozs, cross tail 60"er) to begin with, tricky gaining height on the front, but once on step it found plenty of energy. Then gave the Burp its first go (32ozs) much lighter weight, but easily gained height in the cross on winds, but was expecting it to get buffeted around as the wind on the back of the hill was a bit bumpy. The opposite happened, it was silky smooth. Also looked to be going faster !  It needed almost no aileron imput for several circles at a time, just felt.... locked in is the best way to describe it I think. Obviously very happy with it, but also surprised, how come its out performing my Nitro  with almost half the mass?

  Good news on the Burp sounds like you're onto a winner there.

I've used polyester resin before for a mould but as my garage is attached to the house the smell goes right the way through and the smell isn't to everyones taste 

Pulled the Tonka moulds open tonight, nice clean release, just got to polish them up a bit and they are ready to go.

Have spent some time on the Burp tonight as well. Got the wing mounted, fin cyanoed into position, and it is beginning to look like a plane.

Mould looks good Mark  .

The Burp is coming together to, won't be long now

Just to let you know - done a little bit of work on Burpino tonight. You'll remember I cut the tips off to tidy them up - I've just faced then with some hard balsa tips which I'll finish shaping tomorrow and then probably just seal them in with a little bit of 25g glass. Then an easy repair to the dink in the leading edge near the root, a new horn on one elevon, and then it's gear in time! I'll be sure to video the maiden Mark!

Z

Thanks for the update Zim, sounds like you have it sorted out, hope it works out for you.

Fuselage is primed, needs a bit of filler in some pinholes and a good sand. Servos and wire leads to make the harness came in the post today so can make some progress now. Have cut out the control surfaces, took a lot of passes with a sharp stanley knife, will use a router next time I think. Have covered the bottom of the wing with 175mm laminating film after holding the elevons in place with a bit of selotape. Will now install the servos, then laminate the top surface, cut out the elevons on the top surface only and smear some silicone along the hinge line. Will probably just put some tape stripes on the bottom and leave it natural looking, as it is meant to be cheap quick and easy to build. Lost the plot on the quick,  though have not put much more that 9 or so hours into it overall so far.

Its ready to go....finally.  Finishing it off took a bit longer than expected, up to around 14 hours on it now. Worked out the total cost including the radio gear from giant cod  to be around £68.00
   It looks pretty similar to the green one I made earlier, so wont bother with any workshop pics, but maybe get a few snaps of it on the hill before its maiden this weekend. It took a lot of nose weight and came out all up at 58ozs. It has been an interesting experiment, and made a nice change from carbon and mylars, however, not too happy with the lam film over ply, it looks messy and doesnt stick that securely. On the next one I may just slap some wood varnish on it with some coloured tape orientation stripes underneath.

Nice one Mark, keep us informed about the maiden and piccys wont hurt either 

So now that ones out the way what next ?   

The next project is well on the way Mike, I've been multi tasking.   
A back up for my back up Nitro, ds19 section, cant have too many spares. I am easily swayed though. Would like a larger plane.....4 servo`ed 1.8-2m Tonka plank would be neat. Or a 2m Nitro fuse plug is ready to mould.
Also have the opportunity to get hold of my old Dogan, its been out of production for nearly ten years so might be ok to make moulds of it for personal use, quite keen to have a play with some wing moulds. Need to see it first as not sure the fuse depth under the wing can be built strong enough, also its a bit tatty and would take some work to get it shinny and donk free.

Had an opportunity to maiden the ply burp on Saturday in fantastic lift off a north Devon cliff. Got some help with the set up from Tim, only to find on launch that the ailerons were reversed.....what a numpty.  It went in hard and the plastic bolts snapped, shredding the servo wiring.  Went back to Doug`s place later to see if we could resuscitate it, but no joy. Fixed it Sunday evening when I got home with  new servo wires, and replaced the plastic bolts with metal ones.
   Had another go with it tonight, wind was about 15mph but not square on, was a bit of a struggle getting enough height to dive down the back but managed it once for 30 or so circuits. It was a bit zoomy to start with but got going nicely once I had the trim sorted out, it did get flipped around quite a bit, especially through the shear, but the hill was only just working so need to try it out on a better day.  (Will take a bit of lead out of the nose for the next session)
     I was determined to get it down the back, but the poor little thing took quite a bit of abuse before I managed to gain enough height for a dive in, its a very tough plane.
Forgot the camera, so pics on its next outing.

well done mate ..........got my first bagging exercise going in the shed ....bagging a fin for the reaper .....upped the PB to 110 the weekend with the jw ...still not as fast as that day on the Skirrid though

we need to meet up again ...

Do you mean that day on the Skirrid when I turned up just after you'd stuffed it in Andy? I saw the video of your JW which Rob took before I arrived. I'm pretty sure you anihilated 110 that day mate! And then some!

Steve

That was the day Steve ......Sniper was going well wasnt it ...Mark S remarked on Saturday morning that we could have come down to Morte rather than go up to Rushup ...same distance ...

Andy.

well done mate ..........got my first bagging exercise going in the shed ....bagging a fin for the reaper .....upped the PB to 110 the weekend with the jw ...still not as fast as that day on the Skirrid though

we need to meet up again ...

Congrats on the 110 Andy, it did look mighty quick on the skirrid. Bagging a fin ehhh, wings next......same process, just a bit bigger.

Closer to twice the distance I would think Andy.

only another hour .......

Mark S remarked on Saturday morning that we could have come down to Morte rather than go up to Rushup ...same distance ...

Andy, if you do make the trip down let me know, I was half and half myself  about going down Saturday but with being out all day Sunday I thought better of it.


Congrates on the second attempt maiden Mark Reversed ailerons  what happened to the preflight checks 

That was the day Steve ......Sniper was going well wasnt it ...Mark S remarked on Saturday morning that we could have come down to Morte rather than go up to Rushup ...same distance ...

Andy.

Just waiting for some of the UK top guns to come and check out what our coastal site has to offer. It would be interesting to see what the "pros" can do. Morte doesn't quite have as much room as the Skirrid and (presumably) Rushup but we are thinking that it should be OK for 2m models and maybe larger. We are generally finding that we have to dig in quite deep to get under the shear (although this varies a bit with conditions) which keeps our circuits a bit tighter.

In the interests of taking UK speeds to the next level I would have thought that it would be well worth seeking out coastal ridges where the front side faces the sea. The coast of NW Britain must have something to offer? Possibly on a much bigger scale than we've got in Devon.

Steve

STeve