Topic: Ben Buckle/Sid King 'Novice'

Well, I was going to start the FUS but decided against it for a couple of reasons.

1. Because my current one day off a week does not allow me enough time to get stuck in but in two weeks time I have a week off, so will start then.

2. Because the few bit I ordered from Balsamart turned up sooner than expected, which included a 2"x3" balsa block.

I hate to leave something unfinished, so I decided to make the negative of the LE profile from the balsa block.

It took me a little while to get it right but once done I got the LE on one wing sanded to profile in about half an hour going very carefully and gently. It does look really good even if I do say so myself, I am very proud of it. 

Here are a couple of pics of the negative I made, I agree it doesn't look perfect but it is the curve of the sandpaper that really counts.


Novice-007 by MadTogger, on Flickr


Novice-008 by MadTogger, on Flickr

Regards..,

MT

Is it possible to have a couple of shots of someone's Novice showing where you have located the throttle servo, as the plans only show servo locations for rudder and elevator.

I think the original thinking was a throttleless motor.

The pics will just give me an idea to work with.

Cheers in advance.

MT

I have a 9g servo in the tank bay just in front if the wing. As mine was originally powered by a throttless diesel, it was an after thought for the servo position. The next one will have the servos better laid out

I have a 9g servo in the tank bay just in front if the wing. As mine was originally powered by a throttless diesel, it was an after thought for the servo position. The next one will have the servos better laid out

Hi Nick,

thanks for that, I have just ordered myself a 9g servo along with a few more bits of hardware so next Monday when my weeks hols start I have everything I need to carry on.

One thing I have been pondering while shaping and sanding the wing tip pieces, is protection for them.

Because they are quite soft balsa and to save on dings etc I have thought of coating them with a thinned epoxy, do you think this is doable or not advisable?

If I do do this, does Solartex stick to epoxied areas?

I have read that some people recess piano wire in LE for added protection but as you know, the shape of the wing tips don't relly allow for this option.

Did you fit a wheel to yours, if so, is there enough room in the wheel well to allow for covering or would it be better just to paint this area?

Sorry for all the questions.

Regards..,

MT

The Novice can be landed so gently and slowly the need for much wingtip projection is a moot point. A little strip of hardwood or thin ply would work well and can be replaced easily if ever needfull. I made a little internal box to seal off the internal space over the landing wheel, sealed as for fuel proofing. Just to keep out the wet mucky green/brown stuff fields seem to aquire

i built no1 wings tips as per plan/kit and have not damage the at all through some fairly lively flying. one tip does sport a dink at about mid chord where i smacked it on the garage door!!

on no1 also, i didnt fit a wheel as i thought 'why bother with that?' in hindsight i wish i had fitted one and no.s 2,3, & 4 will have them as no1's underside is pretty scrapped and in need of some tlc

The control line Combat boys whose models are very light and take a bashing which no R/C model would survive often have wingtips made of very light soft balsa block.  Their solution to beefing this up is simply to soak the finished wingtip in very thin Zap which makes it very hard indeed for little effort or weight gain.

I suggest you give that a try

The Novice can be landed so gently and slowly the need for much wingtip projection is a moot point. A little strip of hardwood or thin ply would work well and can be replaced easily if ever needfull. I made a little internal box to seal off the internal space over the landing wheel, sealed as for fuel proofing. Just to keep out the wet mucky green/brown stuff fields seem to aquire

Thanks for the tip, I'll try my best to keep it out of the wet mucky green/brown stuff. 

i built no1 wings tips as per plan/kit and have not damage the at all through some fairly lively flying. one tip does sport a dink at about mid chord where i smacked it on the garage door!!

on no1 also, i didnt fit a wheel as i thought 'why bother with that?' in hindsight i wish i had fitted one and no.s 2,3, & 4 will have them as no1's underside is pretty scrapped and in need of some tlc

Cheers Nick for replying.

The control line Combat boys whose models are very light and take a bashing which no R/C model would survive often have wingtips made of very light soft balsa block.  Their solution to beefing this up is simply to soak the finished wingtip in very thin Zap which makes it very hard indeed for little effort or weight gain.

I suggest you give that a try

That sounds like a better option than epoxy, cheers.

Mad Togger

I like your sanding block for the leading edge of the wing. Don't spent hard cash on a big block of balsa next time though, use a block of cheap blue foam instead. 

Mad Togger

I like your sanding block for the leading edge of the wing. Don't spent hard cash on a big block of balsa next time though, use a block of cheap blue foam instead. 

Cheers for the reply Brian.

Just so happens I required the restof the balsa block for something else anyhow but definitely agree with you about using blue foam.

Regards..,

MT

I have finished building the wings today, start the fus tomorrow.


Novice-009 by MadTogger, on Flickr

looks good - Are you sure you haven't done this before?

looks good - Are you sure you haven't done this before?

Thank you.

The last time that I built, or more to the point, help build a balsa kit was slightly more than 30 years ago.

It was an unpowered glider, fairly large if memory serves and it was launched much like a kite on a long string, you needed two people of course.
when it got above the string pullers head the ring on the end of the string slipped off the hook on the underside of the glider and it flew freely with no way for any user inputs.

I built it with my father and just remember how great it was as long as you had a vast open space, it did end up in trees on many occassions and had to be repaired.

After that I was mainly into RC cars along with a foray into Helis (MFA500 with collective conversion & a Shuttle XL).

All that kind of ended when marriage and my daughter came along.

Now I guess it's a second childhood. 

Well it is great to get started on the fus at last.

I took my time yesterday measuring, cutting and pinning the first side prior to any glueing, it all went really smoothly.
I left that side to dry overnight then removed all the pins from the internal structure, moved the pins from the top and bottom longerons from the top most face to spike in the sides.
I then started on the second side by pinning all the pieces directly on top of the first side before glueing, making sure I had a perfect duplicate side.

I then unpinned all the pieces I had just cut, laid a piece of florists film on top of the first side and gradually worked my way round pinning and glueing the second side pieces straight on top.

The actual instructions says to build the two sides on top of one another and then prise apart when dry with a knife, I couldn't trust myself to do this without breaking something.

All looks good now just have to wait for the second side to dry before more playing.

I have looked a little further on in the instructions and the plans and noticed a couple of things.

I do not have a hardwood skid piece in my kit but have dropped an email to Colin Buckle about it, perhaps he'll pop one in the post to me.

The other thing is that the instructions say to put a peg in the back of F4 to attach an elastic band on around the wing dowels. Now I may be a little thick here but I can't really make out what this means or how it is done.
I would really appreciate any Novice owners to post a pic of their setup on the F4 piece.
I understand it needs to be removable for access.

Regards..,

MT

Last night I managed to get the F6 ply doublers on each side of the fus.

This morning I attached both side to their F7 sheeting.

Fairly straight forward stuff, looking forward to joining both sides together, probably get that done tomorrow.

I'll post some piccies as soon as I can.

Here are some more images of my progress so far.


Novice-010 by MadTogger, on Flickr


Novice-011 by MadTogger, on Flickr


Novice-012 by MadTogger, on Flickr


Novice-013 by MadTogger, on Flickr

For the minute all I have really got left to do on the fus is to glue in the servo rails, which I found to be just shy of 1/8" too short, so I have had to extend them.

Two reasons why I am having to stop with the build is that my weeks hols from work is at an end and also there is not enough 1/16" sheet left to considering any covering, plus I need some 3/32" sheet to build the wheel box.

I have got some materials on order with SLEC.

This does give me plenty of time though to figure out the best placement of the throttle servo.

Space inside the model is at a massive premium.

Regards..,

MT

Personally  I didn't fit the wheel in a well, I have fitted a mono wheel on an extended leg giving a bit more prop clearance and bounce ability.

Well I thought that I would plough on with the build on my two days off from work.

I had great plans to get the wheelbox done, firewall drilled and a lot of the sheeting done. How wrong was I. 

The wheelbox, yep done, no problems there, very simple.

I did drill the firewall.

Then it came to checking the placement of the 2oz fuel tank and rx battery pack, which according to the plan, they both sit right up front directly behind the firewall.

To start with my 5 cell flat rx battery pack is far too large to fit in this space on it's own, let alone having the fuel tank sitting on top of it. I guess at the time of the plans battery packs were decidely smaller.

This also gave me another headache because the original model calls for a throttless glow or diesel motor, which does not require a servo, well I have got an SC12 to fit and need a throttle servo.
How and where the heck am I going to fit it in an already cramped space.

The solution that I came up with was to build in a couple of servo rails about 1.5" back from the firewall to carry the 9g throttle servo and move the fuel tank and battery pack back further against the F8 former, which is just infront of the wings LE.

Doing this has meant that I have also had to move the position of the rx back as it should be where the batt pack and fuel tank are now.

My CofG is going to be out a bit but I have thought about that and will probably make it up by placing some lead shot in a plastic bag and epoxy it down in the nose area directly behind the firewall.

I get some pics up ASAP.

what battery pack are you using? i have a AAA 800mah 4.8v flat pack and it lasts for hrs. no need for 6v. if you think when this was first designed it used bog std servos and a 'big' AA 4.8v pack.

what battery pack are you using? i have a AAA 800mah 4.8v flat pack and it lasts for hrs. no need for 6v. if you think when this was first designed it used bog std servos and a 'big' AA 4.8v pack.

I have got a 6v AA 2300mAh flat pack.

I'll get myself a 4.8v AAA then.

How and where the heck am I going to fit it in an already cramped space.

From what I can see in your pics there is loads of space to fit three servos, receiver and battery under the wing and a shipload of room for the tank just behind the firewall (right where it should be), I would be very surprised if you couldn't put the battery there too.

Why do you want a five cell receiver battery? there is absolutely no need for it because the servos were designed to run off four cells but by adding an extra cell means that the duration will be reduced. 

From what I can see in your pics there is loads of space to fit three servos, receiver and battery under the wing and a shipload of room for the tank just behind the firewall (right where it should be), I would be very surprised if you couldn't put the battery there too.

Why do you want a five cell receiver battery? there is absolutely no need for it because the servos were designed to run off four cells but by adding an extra cell means that the duration will be reduced. 

I have just been told I have the wrong RX batt pack, that is why I couldn't fit it all in.

Sorted now though, got a smaller pack on the way. 

I have recently finished my Novice and was surprised to find I needed lead at the tail. Then it hit me I had used micro (Corona 9gm digital MG) for elevator and rudder and a 9gm micro for throttle and even with an aging OS 10 Max at the front i needed 30gm lead under tail for CofG. I wish I had thought of this when building, I would have shortened the nose a little. Still looking forward to first flight, it was all ready and charged for this morning to wake to 30 mph winds.

I have recently finished my Novice and was surprised to find I needed lead at the tail. Then it hit me I had used micro (Corona 9gm digital MG) for elevator and rudder and a 9gm micro for throttle and even with an aging OS 10 Max at the front i needed 30gm lead under tail for CofG. I wish I had thought of this when building, I would have shortened the nose a little. Still looking forward to first flight, it was all ready and charged for this morning to wake to 30 mph winds.

why didn't you take the prop off and take it to the slope??   

I have recently finished my Novice and was surprised to find I needed lead at the tail. Then it hit me I had used micro (Corona 9gm digital MG) for elevator and rudder and a 9gm micro for throttle and even with an aging OS 10 Max at the front i needed 30gm lead under tail for CofG. I wish I had thought of this when building, I would have shortened the nose a little. Still looking forward to first flight, it was all ready and charged for this morning to wake to 30 mph winds.

Hi capt2724,

great to here that you have yours built, I wonder if you could do me a huge favour?

Could you post some images of the rudder and elevator servo setup you have under the wing, also the throttle servo setup which I guess is under the removable F4 part, plus images showing how you have linked to the actuall throttle.

A big ask I know but I am at an impass with my build.

You may have read my previous posts where I was struggling finding room for a 6v rx batt pack, well now I have the correct 4.8v pack and this does sit nicely on the deck below the tank right up against F1.

I now have plenty of room behind the tank, infront of F8 to fit a standard sized throttle servo with the RX beside it but have also considered using a 9g for this.

From temporarily mounting the motor on the mount to see about the routing for the throttle linkage, it looks very awkward because of the limited amount of space for running this out of the centre of the mount and then around to the actuall throttle pickup itself and then keeping it within the dimensions of the cowl.

I just wish to get as much info as possible before I start cutting and drilling.

The other thing that I did take notice of was the placement of the carb needle valve on my sc12 motor, the fact that it sticks out a fair way and I can see that I am more than likely going to have to cut a hole in the side of the cowling for access.

Kind regards..,

MT

I would use the 9g servo for throttle. Why route the control through the centre? Pick the best "most direct" route past the tank and if you need to drill the engine mount back plate this should not cause a practical problem. At least as to the strength of the engine mount.

Hi MadTogger,

As requested I have attached some pics of my Novice, you will notice I have not built it with a built in mono wheel but an external wheel. hopefully this will give some ground clearance when landing power on.

The in fuselage pic shos my servo tray and to the front under foam is my Rx and to the rear under the swicth is my AAA 4.8v nicad.

Thank you very much capt2724. 

Some piccies of the progress so far.

Showing throttle control and fuel tubing position

Novice-014 by MadTogger, on Flickr

Location of fuel tank & throttle servo

Novice-015 by MadTogger, on Flickr

Rudder & Elevator servo set up

Novice-016 by MadTogger, on Flickr

Rudder & Elevator snakes before linkage is added

Novice-017 by MadTogger, on Flickr

My frenched in RX switch

Novice-018 by MadTogger, on Flickr

Regards..,

MT

MT - Based on your pictures I would make a couple of suggestions:
1  Remove the tank and engine mount temporarily
2  Fuel proof the structure inside and out (as far as you can get at it) back to the end of the tank bay internally and to the mid wing position externally
3 Replace tank and engine mount
4 Use clear silicon sealant around the fuel pipe exit from the fuselage (essentially fill up the centre of the engine mount!)
5 Also seal up where the throttle pushrod outer exits the fire wall.
These things may give you an initial minor weight increase but they may increase the life of a model tenfold - Most things can be fixed/glued/recovered if they aren't fuel-soaked!

Hope this helps 

MT - Based on your pictures I would make a couple of suggestions:
1  Remove the tank and engine mount temporarily
2  Fuel proof the structure inside and out (as far as you can get at it) back to the end of the tank bay internally and to the mid wing position externally
3 Replace tank and engine mount
4 Use clear silicon sealant around the fuel pipe exit from the fuselage (essentially fill up the centre of the engine mount!)
5 Also seal up where the throttle pushrod outer exits the fire wall.
These things may give you an initial minor weight increase but they may increase the life of a model tenfold - Most things can be fixed/glued/recovered if they aren't fuel-soaked!

Hope this helps 

Cheers meharibear,

I have already fuel proofed the tank bay inside and also behind the mount on the front face of F1 as it stated in the instructions, although I know this can't be seen in the photos.

Really unsure about your suggestion of fuel proofing externally though, I have read that doing this makes it a nightmare to cover afterwards, maybe I am wrong here. 

Really good tip about the silcone around the tube exits though, I will do that. 

Regards..,

MT

Cheers meharibear,

I have already fuel proofed the tank bay inside and also behind the mount on the front face of F1 as it stated in the instructions, although I know this can't be seen in the photos.

Excellent!

Really unsure about your suggestion of fuel proofing externally though, I have read that doing this makes it a nightmare to cover afterwards, maybe I am wrong here. 

I've not had that experience but if you do, apply a coat of dilute balsaloc (50% thinned with water or even more) over the fuel proofer and allow to dry before ironing on whatever you are going to cover it with

Really good tip about the silcone around the tube exits though, I will do that. 

Regards..,

MT

The great thing with silicon is that it holds things in place and seals gaps but can be removed reasonably simply when required.  I also use it to hold tanks in place in the tank bay as a vibrating tank can play havoc with your fuel mixture and lead to unexplained dead stick landings.

Hi all,

this might seem like a daft question but here goes.

I am about to sand the tailplane to shape and the instructions aren't that clear. I can see the profile that the elevator is supposed to be, that's no problem, where I am stuck is the rear edges of T2 (the actual tailplane tips), should these also be feathered to match the profile of the elevator?

Regards..,

MT

I don't have the plan in front of me but normally you should build it to all line up and have the same cross section.  Round off the elevator LE and the Tailplane RE so that it all hinges with the minimum gap.

It's been a while since I posted some pics of my progress, so here we are.

Side View of Cowling
Novice-019 by MadTogger, on Flickr

Front View of Cowling
Novice-020 by MadTogger, on Flickr

Fuselage Sheeted & Sanded
Novice-021 by MadTogger, on Flickr

It took me an age to get the engine cowling exactly how I wanted it but I don't think it has turned out too bad.

Regards..,

MT

I don't have the plan in front of me but normally you should build it to all line up and have the same cross section.  Round off the elevator LE and the Tailplane RE so that it all hinges with the minimum gap.

Cheers for replying,

I understand the shaping of the elevator LE as per the plan and that the elevator profile feathers down from the LE to the TE, it's just where the elevator is enclosed as it were inside of the tailplane's tips, do these tips need to follow the same profile as the elevator, i.e. feathering off to the rear most edge.

Here are a couple of images that may help.

The first image is the profile shown on the plan, the second image shows the elevator in situ and you can see the tailplane tips.


Novice-022 by MadTogger, on Flickr


Novice-023 by MadTogger, on Flickr

Regards..,

MT

I didn't profile my elevator trailing edge at all, saved time and is a little styronger because of its thickness and it still flies very well.

I now take it out with me every trip and a number of clubmates have hinted at building one too.

 

I would sand it to section as though it have been made in one piece and the the elevator cut out if that makes sense?