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Building Tips and technical articles. => 1/2 A building. => Topic started by: FLOYD CARTER on January 07, 2014, 04:03:45 PM
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I've built large R/C planes from Monsanto "Fome-cor" 1/8" board. Now, in a weak moment, I've bought a bunch of "Depron" sheets in 3mm and 2 mm thickness.
Now, I'm trying to think of something to use it for! Maybe a small electric C/L stunter.
It would be better to start with a proven design. Does anyone know of plans for a stunter using Depron?
Floyd
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Igor Burger's GeeBee R3 is a proven indoor electric. There's plans build threads for it in CAD and Electric forums.
If you want something else... Adjust a plan to use your foam instead of 1.5mm (1/16") balsa.
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I use Depron to make great free flight models.
Orv.
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Cox sold a 1/2 stunter with a foam wing that was formed by folding it back on itself, sort of. It was molded into an airfoil shape, with a crease at the leading edge, then you folded the wing at the crease, and taped the trailing edge. The wings then plugged onto a proper shaped stub at the fuselage and was held in place with clear tape. They had a Chipmunk and a ME-109, They sold replacement wing panels, and they came with a plan for a profile Focke-Wolfe 190 that used that wing. Larry Renger had something to do with the whole deal. If you can find a set of those wings, the plans can be useful for scratch built wings. The foam Cox used reminds me a lot of the Depron, but may not be as thick. I would think the 2mm stuff could be worked and formed into a successful hollow stunt wing for small models. If you can't find any of the Cox plans, let me know and I can dig one up.
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee
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Guilty as charged. The Me-109 and Chipmunk were, indeed, my babies. However, I recieved a great amount of advice from long time stunt champ Charles Mackey that helped tune it in for great stunt performance. The model would do every maneuver in the current stunt pattern right out of the box. I would guess that about 100,000 of the two models were produced, including the redo with solid foam wing in the 90's.
There was also a much smaller Crusader using the same type wing.
The wings were polystyrene foam sheet molded at a local egg carton factory. The heated sheet was clamped between chilled top an bottom mold plates.
When we introduced the Black Widow engine, we had a special consisting of a pair of wings and pland for a FW-190. I also published th Skyfire model in Flying Models, subsequently kitted by Dick Mathis. He only did 1000 kits, so if you have one it is pretty rare.
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I still have the Chipmunk ready to fly in the box. It was given to my by the great Vic Garner of CL racing fame. It will probably never be flown.
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My widowed neighbor gave my boys her late husbands Cox Chipmunk, with plastic fuse and foam wing. She had the Cox starter kit and everything was new. The plane didn't have the box, but had never been fueled. It was our first CL plane. Wish we would have listened to a couple guys and put it on the shelf until we knew how to fly. But we just had to fly it.
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There's lots of articles (and such) online about shaping depron - with or without the use of heat. Search terms like ¨¨ molding depron ¨¨ should find plenty.
Getting a really really neat shape in small sizes may be a challenge. Most seem to go for the simplicity of reinforced "flat foamies".
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I have built a number of foamies for CL, depron and/or $ store foam. A couple shown in attachements
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Some fine engineering on that P38, John.
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Thanks Mike. The design is basically the same as used by the RC fraternity. Both planes shown used Dollar Store board with the paper left on. I fly sturdier designs, but still all foam in the carrier event.