This bend looks way too tight for me, for 1/8" music wire upon which a 5- pound model airplane will land. I have visions of the thing snapping on landing, scuffing the hell out of one wing tip or another, and possibly making me cut into the (hopefully really nicely finished) top of the wing to push the remains out.
I can anticipate at least 500 flights on the thing, much of it off of grass.
What do y'all think? Bend new ones, or use what's in the kit?
Tim Wescott fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
Make your own. If the metal's a badly stretched as it is on the outside of that bend, it can't help but to have been weakened AND embrittled.
De rigeur with heavier models is to bend it in a fairly gentle sweep, then solder on a washer to act as the inboard bearing, instead of the wheel's bearing directly on the 'crotch' of the bend. It'll turn better, too.
Lloyd
I needed someone to tell me to do what I knew I needed to do. I'm kinda disappointed in the kit -- I need to build another nine scratch-built planes until I'm pining for the "ease" of kit building again, which will be corrected with one more kit...
It may be de rigeur, but it certainly wasn't observed by Brodak's on this kit.
I've got a nice bender with a 3/16" diameter pin. It's a bit generous, but I've never had a problem with stuff that I've bent.
Sigh. More time on stuff that should have been better than I could possibly do myself...
Tim Wescott fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
I've got two kits on the shelf that have had to sit there until I get this military project done and accepted.
I don't think I've ever built a kit that I didn't modify -- sometimes a lot. Unless the whole thing is a botch-job, I don't really think of that as "disappointment" so much as "improvement".
I'm partial to 3M gliders, m'self, although I have three stink pots, still, and have flown fuel for decades. The sailplanes just seem more "elegant" in the air, especially when you get a two hour flight off a rubber high-start, and not a DROP of fuel!
Lloyd
I agree, the bend looks too tight for having been bent cold. And I doubt if they heated it , bent it , and then re heat treated it.
Dan
I was still pretty young yet, early 20's maybe when I figured that out...
After having to re-repair things correctly a few times, that I had paid somebody professional to do what I thought was beyond my abilities, I just do it myself. A Pro or manufacturer almost always has time and material costs working against doing a perfect job. Not to mention mostly mediocre employees (law of averages). If you care about the job being done you won't cut the same corners that they will. Ya, I cut corners doing stuff my self, but usually in cosmetic concerns. Not where the actual function/purpose takes place. There I tend to go overboard. Use better fasteners, higher grade replacements... but not always. Sometimes good-enough is good-enough.
So suck it up, you already knew you were going to have to make things over or better ;-)
That certainly looks like it has damaged the integrity of the metal at the kink. You could give it a repetitive bounce test, but why waste time? If it were mine, I wouldn't take chances and would bend a new landing gear strut for myself.
It's already collapsing on the compression side, and it's seriously elongated on the tension side. It's already lost much of its strength.
It's a new (to me) manufacturer with a pretty good rep. And it's been a long time since I've built a kit, so I forgot (or neglected to remember) that.
Snivel. Whine. Etc., etc.
My current control line stunt flying buddy flies control line as his _second_ competition event. His first is RC sailplanes, with which he competes at the national level (he's won the Nats a few times). For a while he was the factory rep for a guy in the Seattle area who made top- quality competition kits, back when such things weren't all made for a lot less money in formerly communist eastern European countries.
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