Conference vmszoo::rc

    Lamar,
    
        You haven't seen vague plans till you've owned a Weston Aerodesign
    kit!
    
                      
    Good luck with the Falcon.
    
    There is so much snow here at the moment, that it is unthinkable that
    a contest could be flown in a month.  Heard on the news last night that
    we have had over 80" already, with a large strom predicted for this
    weekend.  One of the club members measured the snow on our field -
    34"!  Its going to be a soggy spring!
    
    
                                                               Regards,
    
                                                               Jim

Since I was sonw bound this weekend, I tried to do some more work on the Falcon.
The first order of business was cutting out the spar slots. To do this, I used
my dremel tools with the router base attachment. I used masking tape to mark off
the slot area and to prtect the foam. A larger(48") metal ruler, held in place
with weights and more masking tape, was used as a straight edge guide. The setup
worked flawlessly and the spar slots came out perfect, although it looked as if 
the blizzard had hit my shop while I was cutting them! There were foam shavings
everywhere!!!!  

Next, I got the spars out and glued the brass wing rod tubes in place. This took
a long time since I did one side of both spars at a time. I managed to fill the
wait time with work on the 1/12th scale ME109(from House of Balsa) kit I have(
but that's another topic :-)! ) Anyway, I had the tubes epoxied into the spars
by Saturday afternoon and decided to try and get the fibergalss shearweb applied
before I rejoined the rest of the family upstairs. I should have waited, because
the next half hour proved to be VERY frustating. 

The fiberglass shearweb supplied in the kit is a roll of six inch wide 7ozs 
cloth. Again, the instructions say to "apply the fiberglass shear webs as 
indicated by the plans." The plans however, show 1/32" ply shearwebs which extend
out 14" on the LE side and 10" on the TE side. Now here is where I could be
wrong, but what I tried to do was to take a 14" piece of the cloth and wrap it
around the spar. I also made the mistake of not zapping the edge of the cloth to
the spar before I put the epoxy(30 minute.) The cloth was heavy(remember 7 ozs
type) and wasn't going around the edges well. I couldn't pull the cloth tight
enough to make stay down on the top or bottom of the spar. After about 10 minutes
of futile effort, I ripped the cloth off and wiped off as much epoxy as I could.
I then went upstairs a beaten man...:-(

Sooo, the question to any of you guys out there is should the fiberglass shearweb
only be applied to the face of the spar? Everything I've read talks about 
wrapping the fiberglass around the spar. 

Re .1 Jim,
I have to agree with you about the contest in April. With the snow we got this
weekend, I doubt if the contest will be held. Sigh....think Spring....

-Lamar

    
    As memory serves from building my Quasoar: after glueing in the tube
    for the wing joiner I glued one shearweb to the front of the spars and
    one to the backside. Conservative as I am I wrapped some glass around
    this and epoxid it. To hold the glass down I wrapped some plastic
    around the still wet epoxi to keep the glass as tight to the spar as
    possible.
    
    Still, I hope I understood what you where asking.....
    Anyway, this construction even withstand zoomlaunches.
    
    
    Bernd
     

Hi Bernd,

Yes, you understood my "round about way" of describing the problem. :-) Kay sent
me a note off line and suggested I call Flite Lite to find out how to apply the
shearwed material. I'll be doing that during lunch today and will post what I
find out.

Also, I don't want people to get the wrong impression about the Falcon kit I *DO*
like the kit and feel that it is good quality. If anyone was thinking of getting
a Falcon, I suggest going with a presheeted wing kit. The "extra" $100 dollars
cost is well worth the hassle of sheeting the wing yourself. Of course if you
don't have the "extra $100 dollars"(as I didn't!), just be prepared for the 
amount of effort needed to sheet the wings. I'm sure in the end(when the Falcon's
completed), I'm going to have one helluva nice flying glider!!

-Lamar

I just called Flite Lite's phone number and got Aitronics headquarters. I 
remember Kay mentioning that Tim Renaud(sp?) said at the WRAM shows, that
Airtonics would be distributing Flite Lite kits. I guess this confirms it. 
Anyway, I didn't get an answer to my question regarding the spar. They have to
fax my question to Ron at Flite Lite and someone will get back to me. With
Airtronics selling Falcons and Thermal Eagles, I wonder what will happen to the
Legend???

-Lamar

    Lamar,
    
         Are the Falcon cores 2 piece or 4 piece?  Does the spar
    extend the full length of the wing?  If I understand the previous note
    the Shear webbing only extends 14" out from the root.  Is this correct?
    
                                                    Thanks,
    
                                                    Jim

re.6 Jim,

The Falcon cores are two piece(46" main core and 11.5" tip core.) The spar only
extends 24" out into the core is 3/8" balsa with fiberglass shear webs(14" on
LE side and 10" on TE side. The spar is capped on the top and bottom with a 
carbon fiber ribbon which is about 1.5" wide. Yup, these are looong cores! 

I have a question for you Jim regarding the water based polyurethane you used. 
Who made and what was the name of the product? I saw something made by MinWax
called PolyAcrylic(or something similar.) I sthis the same stuff you used on the
obechi?

-Lamar

    re; -1
    
    Lamar,
    
         Minwax polyacrylic is the stuff I used.  Use spackle to fill the
    obechi grain.  Apply spackle with credit card at 45 degrees to the
    grain.
    
    Thanks for the Falcon wing info.  
    
                                                       Regards,
    
                                                       Jim

    An ignorant question from the UK. As one who also needs to fill obechi
    grain, what's 'spackle'.
    
    Cheers,
    
    Malcolm

    Hi Malcolm,
    
    	"Spackle" is also known as Joint Compound. Commonly used when
    putting up sheetrock walls in houses. It's the stuff used to fill the
    joint between two pieces of sheetrock (wallboard).
    
    	The trouble with "regular" joint compound is that it's VERY thick
    HEAVY stuff. Most hardware stores sell stuff that does the same thing
    but is MUCH lighter. I personally use something called Lite 222. This
    is a very light weight paste that can be used to fill the grain in
    balsa, obechi, fiberglass etc.
    
    Steve