Well me and my son did some practice combat/racing with my 2 magicians. This was the worst of the damages. Still fixable I think. I was even playing with the idea of making a full body magician fuselage out of Dollar Tree Foam board. Reenforce with maybe light ply or carbon viel?  I have not made a dtf full body fuselage yet and certainly not a scratch build design. Easiest way would be 4 seperate prices and not one continually connected price.  Rough weigh numbers are this. Just the 1/4 thick balsa fuselage without sanding and no ply added is 21 grams... a full 3/16 sheet of dtf 20x30 is 11 grams. Might be worth looking into?  Mind you this was the SECOND time in two days I snapped this lime green magician in half... So TADA! Smack... ya TADUH!... lol  smart alleck Magician.

I am open to rebuilding advice on this repair.  I did try the flight trimming tool of holding the handle to my chest... I need more info on how to use THAT TOOL. I hope Mr. Larry Renger can contact me on this. Thank Larry for all your help too!

Tally ho
Rosie 3604634566
Rosierosenau@yahoo.com

Well getting it to my chest was a touchy trick but once set the lime green magician flew a set line so I would say success. I did not get to do this inverted though. Right now I am rebuilding a replacement fuselage for the lime green magician. Started 2 or 3 options yesterday. The first is simply two sheets of 1/8 inch sheets laminated together.  The 2 option is a full body attempt made out of DTF so that is light but a complete engineering quest but I am seeing if I can even do it. I dreamed up a 3rd option last night. Same as the first laminating two sheets of 1/8 sheets together but sandwich light weight carbon veil in the hope it will be strengthened and not add much weight.

Oh wow. Thank you and I am glad you let me know since I have KNOW.... I always told my kids NO... what part of NO did they not understand, the K or the W?

I digress, I really appreciate the info.  Any idea how a DTF full fuselage could work out? So far the weight is really light but very fragile too. I will need to attach something... carbon viel or light ply to the inside of the body. I have the rear tapering down just behind the cockpits verticle rear window line...  Anyone else notice the cockpit looks ALOT like the F4U-1A Corsair? 

Hey Rosie:

On foam:

I know that DTF works well with 'lectric RC planes -- there's an RC combat plane on Flight Test RC that I think would make a great sport CL model just by leaving off the radio and putting on a bellcrank.

I don't know how it'd stand up to an engine -- I think you'd need a plywood box with the engine mount, then extend the fuselage off of that.

"Real" DTF just falls apart in water -- one of my RC flying buddies has found some foam at JoAnne's Fabrics that looks the same but is plastic coated.  He left some under his workbench for a day with water pooled on it, and it showed no sign of damage.

So I think that if it's properly done, water and (if necessary) fuel proofed, it should work well.

On CF and structural strength:

Most of the strength you need in a fuselage is against bending.  That comes from having strong stuff on the outside of the fuselage, and the bigger the fuselage the better.  It's why so much stuff is built with tubes -- most of the resistance to bending comes from the outside little bit of the tube.  As long as your tube isn't collapsing like an empty beer can, the bigger it is and the thinner the walls are, the stronger it is for its weight.

So put your CF veil on the outside of your structure.

It's the same reason that DTF should work if you make a box out of it instead of trying to use a single sheet.