Hi Guys,
I am in the process of creating an engine crutch for a classic plane using 1/2" by 3/8" maple but the problem is trying to find straight, parallel and square wood to make it out of. I have a fair sized stock on hand and I have even raided local hobby shops to check their stocks but no joy.
I have cut down oversize stock till it was straight and true but within a day
tension in the wood grain got released by my trimming it down and I ended up with a correctly sized but bowed piece.
My question, has anyone tried to create "engineered wood". My idea is to cut
1/8" thick lengthwise strips for the top and bottom and fill the middle with vertical grain maple, use a structural epoxy like t-88 and clamp that sucker tight. When it is dry sand it true and straight. All the different grain directions should cancel out any tendency for the piece to bow.
Some questions I have are will it be strong enough? or will the vertical grain
create some unexpected harmonics or vibrations in the airframe?
So guys have any of you tried anything like this before ? What were your results?
Without feedback I am reluctant to try this out on this airplane but I may try it on a "test-mule" in the future. 
I don't remember having this much trouble finding straight stock before. Perhaps, it is just my local problem or it could be the maple is now dried differently or whatever reason, it is still frustrating  .
Thanks for listening guys,
                                            Pat Robinson

Hi Alan,
I just sized down some more maple pieces and I will see what they look like tomorrow. I wonder if your planks were well seasoned and dried well which tends to make them a little more stable and you also probably have good straight grain. Sound like you got some good stuff.  I was serious about the lack of any straight stock at hobby shops and my mail ordered stock isn't much better so I hope this isn't a quality trend in maple stock. I am going to tryout "engineered wood" in the future and see how it works. Who knows one of our vendors may end up offering engineered wood motor mounts
in the future if it proves viable. By the way, T-88 epoxy is said to be used a lot in homebuilt aircraft construction to join hardwoods together  and to join wood to metal. I know, it is not brittle like hobby shop epoxy and its bond is the strongest I have seen on hardwoods. It should hold an engineered piece together. 
Alan, Thanks for your input on working with hardwood.

                                                      Pat Robinson
 

Walter,
T-88 is a product of System Three Co.. I bought mine at a woodworking shop but it is available at Nelson Hobby Products, Aircraft Spruce Co. and any boat shop that sells System Three products.
30 Years ago In an old model book in my local library I saw a picture of a crutch for a speed ship before speed pans were available. The idea clicked so I used maple to cross brace my motor rails and drilled it  and inserted a 3/32" music wire through each cross brace into each rail. Cut of excess wire and you end up with a solid crutch that ended all my front end and vibration problems. Every airplane including profiles got this crutch. Over a decade later I saw Windy using cross grain balsa in a crutch assembly which I thought was interesting but I stayed with my method. 
The point of all this is I always check a crutch by grabbing each end and twisting it hard. If it doesn't bend then I don't have problems and the music wire is to insure that the cross members glue joint doesn't break in shear load which brittle hobby shop epoxy has done during tests years ago.
Now to my main point, the T-88  glue joint is as strong without the music wire as the other glue and music wire. I twisted the heck out of that crutch and it held up just fine using a simple butt joint and T-88. I was impressed.
So Walter you can check for local sources or just order it from Nelsons and etc.  Hope this helps.
                                                                          Pat Robinson

I'm not a fan of metal motor mounts. I had a (dare I say it?) RC airplane with an OS .40 mounted on a radial aluminum mount. There was a constant drumming in the airframe at most engine speeds. I switched to a glass filled mount and the noise was greatly reduced. My guess is that the "softer" mount provides some damping of the oscillations while a hard mount transmitted it to the airframe. Could be other reasons for the change but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Pat,

Hmmm. I've never tried it the way you describe, but I have made my own glue-lam beams for engine mounts. I used 1/16" sheet maple (aquired at the local building supply place, I think 6" x 24") and lamminated them to make 3/8" x 1/2" and 1/2" x 1/2" mounts without problems. No bow and they are easy to machine square and stay that way. I generally cut the sheet into 3/8" long strips and stacked them up with epoxy then clamped them in a jig I made for that purpose. Haven't had a problem yet.

Pat,
actuallly I know that Randy Powell has created a carbon composite engine crutch. Not sure but based on some of the things I read, he wasnt totally satisfied with the outcome, though as i remember the issues were never actually accredited to the crutch assembly. perhaps he will chime in here or can refer to the thread that it was discussed in.

Pat,

I know this isn't a direct answer to your question but thought it might be useful for you and perhaps some thers that read it.

I always keep my eye peel for cast off furniture.  People sometimes throw it away just because the finish is marred or just a portion of it is broken.  The wood is usually aged enough to be stable and the cost is right.  Just one drawer is enough for a pretty good supply of motor mounts.  If you are fortunate enough to find "rock" maple fine, but other hardwoods work well also.   White oak, birch, alder and hickory come to mind as pretty good substitutes.

 

Pat,

Red oak is too porous to work well as it will fuel soak and loose strength too easily.  Thats why it white oak is used to make barrels to contain liquid.   

What you need is any high density wood that is not so porous it will fuel soak easily.  sugar maple or rock maple fills the bill and is not really a rare or exotic wood.  I have built a lot of models manufactured in the far east where the mounts were made from hard woods that were unidentifilable by me but worked well.

A problem I see with the built up or composit mounts is 1 a lot of work and 2 the glue makes them heavy.

Very interesting thread. I was fortunate to obtain some #1 select maple flooring that had been bought for a gym floor some 30 years ago and the excess was kept in dry storage. It is T&G  2 1/4 x 1 1/16. An excellent source would be old gym flooring from a demolished building. It would be well cured. The problem with buying lumber like at Lowe's is that it may not have been dryer properly and is of course subject to warping. I use Lowe's only as an example. I have never bought any hardwood there. I have found that hard maple and birch make the best motor mounts. My preference is maple. The coarser grain woods such as oak, ash, or hickory don't seen to work as well due to the fact that motor mounts are relatively small. If I was going to make LVL (laminate veneer lumber) I would consider using 1/8 inch plywood to laminate it. If you want to use 1/16th solid it could be ripped from larger stock with a commercial grade table saw. With a heavy saw and a sharp blade you can even rip pieces thinner than 1/16. Here are a couple of pictures of crutches that I have made. One was for an ARF Flite streak with a hollow fuselage that kept breaking at the front of the wing. You can see that the crutch extends past the leading edge of the wing. The holes are drilled to lighten it. The other picture is for a scratch built Ringmaster. I actually saved a little weight by using a crutch and changing the doublers from 1/8 to 1/16. The hardwood dowels are for landing gear bolts. The mounts are cut out roughly to shape and size with a saw/s and the final shape is cut with a mill/drill and a router bit. The last operation is to mill them down to thickness.

Looking at that maple front end reminded me of my Goldberg Shoestring that I put together for Fox Racing. I more or less made a solid crutch out of a single piece of maple (same maple I was refering to above). I thought that would really toughen up that front end.

Well first time I ran that plane with a screaming Fox35 and an APC9-6 prop, what a vibrating disaster! I had a glove on my hand that I was using for flipping the prop. As the plane was running, I was holding the wingtip with that gloved hand. I could feel my fingers getting warm! The friction from the vibration was actually heating my gloved fingers. When I flew the plane, I could see standing waves along the control lines. Finally in a flight or two later, the down leadout wire was cut through by the Fox Bellcrank (look ma, no bushings!) and the plane went into tight loop mode. Fortunately I was able to pancake it into the ground without too much damage.

I tried several things which worked some, but finally gave up. 

Decided that the balsa in a front end does a lot of good soaking up the engine vibration--like a shock absorber. That maple apparently was ringing like a bell. I couldn't ever get that plane to fly worth a damn --even with a LA25 for stunting. It was better, but still too much vibration. Learned a couple of things from that "world-beater" concept.

Pat,

Using a radial sort of CF mount works fine, largely because it is mounted to a firewall and the vibration is insulated from the tank. The ones I made (both just beams and a complete crutch) had the disadvantate, looked at with 20/20 hindsight, of have the tank sitting not just right on them, but bolted to them. When I changed to a clunk tank and used some soft foam rubber to isolate it from contact with the mounts, the problem mostly went away, though I wasn't very happy with the ability of the CF to transmit vibration to the air frame. Wood mounts give you a certain amount of dampening that the CF just passes along. Probably not a big deal if the structure is solid, but they didn't make me particularly happy. You're milage may vary.

I started building laminted "glu-lam" mounts with a removable, aluminum insets. The engine bolts to the aluminum and the aluminum in turn bolts to the maple. Allows for easy engine changes and certainly does a good job of dampening vibration. Works for me.

oops the other picture didn't attatch
Dave jr.

Hi MIke
well when it was a pickup with the 429 ford under (sort of) the hood it looped about the same left and right.
but now it has an injected 5.0 ford, but i suspect it will loop decently enough either way
i may show up latter at the arf off but since i dont have a Arf to Off i wont be flying.
i tried to figure a way around the non builder of the model rule but havent figured out a clause yet
Dave jr

Thanks for the offer mike but my daughter is in town this weekend so i wont be able to go (sigh)
i might be able to stop by breifly in the afternoon but wont have time to fly
the car was black primer when it was a pickup a few years ago . it had that rat rod look. we built it in a few months so my son could drive it to high school part of his senior year. chopped big block model A, yeah thats cool. too bad i could hardly fit in it to drive it though. hence the sedan body now.
when its done i hope to use it to go flying so you will probably see it at field
have fun at the contest
Dave jr.

WOW Guys! 
You all have done a great job on this thread while I have been away and thanks for all your input and also thanks for the kind offer of help of wood
so I can finally build this freaking crutch. Thank you very much and I believe I will contact one of you gentlemen.  I never gave motor mount stock much thought over the years but thrust alignment is one of the three most critical alignments on a stunt plane so bowing mounts are a serious no-no so I am paying big attention, now.  I think this thread which is filled with insightful experiences and information is exactly the reason that Sparky created this forum. In the future, I am going to store maple in a low humidity part of the house and do all crutch work in low humidity area and seal every mount in epoxy to seal out humidity as quick as I do any work on it because I live in the humid southeast.Will it help?- We'll see.  I am also going to try a glue-lam mount structure in the near future. 

Once again I want to thank everyone for your participation, your ideas and your help.  You all deserve a "Well Done!"- "Kudos" and Thanks!
                                         
                                                                  Pat Robinson

Hi Lee,
Hum, I haven't thought of phenolic as a material for mounts. I vaguely remember seeing a reference to using phenolic as a replacement for aluminum as engine mount pads. Lee, let me see if I am clear are you suggesting that you glue-lam a combination of plywood and phenolic
to make a mount. If I was going to use any plywood in a glue-lam I think I would glue in aluminum or brass tubes and run engine bolt in them. This prevents compressing the mount. Interesting idea, Lee, maybe someone will have some input to your questions.

Guys, I was wondering if I could test different materials for vibrations and harmonics by building a crossed brace crutch and the clamp it to a wooden structure at the rear of the crutch run an engine on the crutch and measure the vibration using a "Vibra-tach" or some other device? It would be nice to have some emprical testing on different materials to see how they work.
You guys, have any ideas as to how to structure such an experiment in order for it to yeild valid data? I would love your input. Interesting stuff!

                                                                     Pat Robinson

Hi Lee,
I held off answering in hopes that others might respond to your question but
I am not sure is anyone has tried phenolic as motor mount material before.

Questions about an "untried material" that I would have if I were you:

1. Is phenolic tough enough and non-brittle enough to hold up to the stresses created by a running engine. Build a crutch and do extensive test on the crutch clamped to a test stand at the rear of the crutch to insure it will hold up.
2. Would phenolic material amplify and transmit engine created vibrations and harmonics to the airframe more than maple material. You could build  maple and phenolic crutches of the same design and & and then clamp them & test them to find out.

Lee, one question I have abou the crutch you designed. If you only have a cross member at the rear what is stabilizing the front of the crutch?
On my crutches I use a cross member of 1/4"x 1/2"  behind the engine
where the front plywood former goes and another cross member at the rear
located so the rear ply former can glue to it. Other people use cross grain balsa behind the engine to the rear former location to stabilize the crutch.
Before the common use of the crutch in stunters the only thing holding the motor mounts to the plane were the 4 little 1/8" wide glue joints to the front and rear ply formers and this caused problems of failed structures and bad motor runs - well they did for me. I won't speak for everybody else.
That is why I started using a crutch 30 years ago and never looked back.

Anyway, getting back to your design I would cut another cross piece at the front to stabilize the front of the crutch because that is where twisting and vibration forces are applied to the crutch by the engine and the front cross piece helps damp those forces. 
Because you are cutting the crutch out of a single piece of material I would radius all the corners of your cuts in order reduce the chance of creating a stress riser that could lead to a crack or split in your crutch.

 Is this crutch heavier than a maple crutch or is it comparable?

In order to deaden & reduce vibration in the open area between cross pieces located under the tank area I glue blue foam capped with 1/16" balsa coated with epoxy & 1/2 oz  fiberglass. This reduces tank foaming problems.

Lee, those are my reccomendations. You are delving into an untested area so you are just going to have to try it and see. Interesting idea- let us know how it works out.

                                                             Best of luck,
                                                         Pat Robinson

Not for nothing but what about using a thinner phonolic or glass filled sheet and
laminating aircraft ply to it, one side or both?
Perry Rose

 Has anyone tried "Delrin" as an engine mount? It is easy to machine,very stable. I'm not sure about weight or if you could laminate itwith plywood,but it is very strong. If your not familar with it, some of it's uses include:jigs for woodworking,non-wearing(slow) parts for machining.I use to make suspension parts for R/C cars out of it.

Steve

Hi Guys,

Wow! This thread just keeps on going due to the creative thinking of all you guys.
Steve, Delrin as motor mount material is a clever idea. It is hard enough to resist compression and it is pretty tough stuff. I have a sheet of it in my stockpile.  I think it would be heavier than other materials but I'm not sure.
When, trying out new materials you may find you don't need as large a piece to acheive the same strength and function so you can maintain similar weight even with a heavier material.

The biggest question I would have is is how do you bond it into a crutch and glue in blind nuts and glue it to the fuselage. Do you know what kind of glue can bond delrin to other materials? I can see some ways to bolt things together and mount blind nuts but you have to glue it to the fuselage somehow, but if that could be worked out then then is certainly a possibility.

i suppose someone could cut the whole crutch out of a larger sheet but that would probably increase cost per crutch because you would have to buy a larger sheet of delrin.  This is an interesting idea that has some details to be worked out, but that is what modelers do when presented with a problem.

Interesting idea Steve, thanks for your input. I have almost no experience working with delrin so maybe you could tell us the best way to cut and shape this material.  Good Stuff!

Hi Perry, I not exactly sure what you are asking but I will take a stab at it anyway.

Most maple motor mount stock I have bought over the years looks to be  quarter-sawn wood which yeilds a fairly straight grain over the length of the piece.  In my "ladder-shaped" crutch with a cross piece at the front and rear
the grain of the cross piece is at a right angle to the grain of the main motor mount rails with a piece of 3/32" music wire through it.

If you are asking about grain direction in a situation where someone is whacking out the whole crutch out of 1 sheet of wood then the grain direction is still down the length of the main motor mount rails.
If you do this, I would suggest you radius and smooth all corners to reduce the chance of creating a stress riser that could split the wood and I would also suggest you drill  through the center of each cross member and epoxy in a 3/32" piece of music wire through the whole crutch to provide a lot of strength against shearing motions that can cause a wood to split.

The only other crutch type I know about is the "balsa cross grained crutch".
The maple rails run lengthwise and straight grain balsa is is glued at a right angle to the rails to form the tank floor. By the way,both  this crutch style and my "ladder-style" crutch provide a very solid gluing area for the plywood formers which really creates a strong and soild front end.

Perry, I wasn't sure what you were asking about so I decided to be inclusive in my answer.  I hope, it helped. 
                                                         Pat Robinson

Hi Steve,
I went online and did some research on gluing delrin.  First Delrin is a Dupont brand name for acetal plastic.

What I found was a somewhat mixed feed back on gluing delrin.

1. Some folks reccomended using a etching primer to delrin before gluing it.
    Loctite prism 700 primer is an example. Other folks, said these primers
    are nasty stuff and advised against using them.
2. Some people say delrin is unglueable and others say they glue just fine
    within reasonable loads.

What  did folks agree on, at most of the sites I looked at :

1. Rough up the surface to be glued to give glue a good mechanical bond to
    grab on to.
2. Use alcohol to thoroughly clean all trace of the normal greasy coating
    from the delrin.
3. Re-enforce the glue joint with some mechanical fasteners like bolts to insure the integrity of the glue joint.

The glues that people recommended were :

1." Loctite super glue for all plastics" thats available at Home Depot for $4.00
2. "Cyanopoxy" available at Cool-Chem.com . Go to mr hobby.com for
    details on this glue stystem. It sells for $50.00 to $80.00 for complete
    kits.  This stuff is supposed to be the ultimate glue for delrin.
3. Another glue was listed when I looked up glues for delrin is at
    www.thisglueworks.com, but I didn't see a specific reference to delrin.

So Steve, delrin can be glued if you follow th 3 steps above. This works into your idea of of bolting it to the airframe. You could bolt together a crutch like my design. Then you could glue and bolt the plywood doublers to the sides of the crutch. Then you could glue and bolt the plywood formers to the cross pieces and use normal glue to join the ply formers to the ply doublers.

Steve, one thing I found was a place selling delrin cutoffs. This stuff is expensive! You could probably drop $15.00 -$20.00+, just for a crutch.
If you have an inside source for delrin good but if not then price might be a factor to be considered.

Delrin is like phenolic in the fact that it hasn't been tried out and tested as a motor mount material. ( as far as I know) Both these materials are unknowns
for this application until someone actually trys them out.

My conclusion, delrin is an unknown but it may be a viable possibility as a motor mount material. I would test it throughly on the bench before I put it in an airplane.   

It seems there are lots of possibilities for something as seemingly mundane as motor mounts.

Once again, Steve , thanks for your input.
                                                                  Pat Robinson
                                                               
   

Hi Steve,
Combat mounts are usually shorter that stunt mounts but I think a combat plane will certainly test the strength of delrin as a motor mount material.
Let us know your results
                                                            Good luck,
                                                               Pat Robinson


P.S.  Due to Dave Shirleys help by providing me with straight wood I have built a straight crutch and coated it with epoxy finishing resin to block out humidity. I only need to get the TT 36 PRO from my engine guru and I can get on with building the Playboy kit.  I would like to publiclly thank Dave Shirley for his kind help with straight wood.
This thread has been an interesting and informative process for me and I hope it has been for everyone else. If nothing else I think it proves there are a lot of clever and inventive thinking people on this forum.

If anyone has any other clever or new ideas on engine mounts then feel free to let everyone know otherwise I think this thread has run it's course.
I would like to thank everyone who has participated for your input.

                                                   Pat Robinson

Delrin will be too soft and flexible for motor mounts.  At a minimum you need glass-filled, or carbonfiber-filled plastic.  The plastic mounts have to be way over sized compared to aluminum, and over-sized compared to wood to get enough stiffness.  You might try carving the mounts out of one of the larger RC adjustable mounts(Hangar 9, Tower, etc) and gluing/screwing them to the fuse sides.

 Pat
  I'm still reading, I need all the info I can find. I'm going to put this mount idea away for now. Since this plane is my father's I'd like to keep any possible problems to a minimum. I have been considering a profile fuse with a built up ply mount/ doubler. Will post results once I'm done,am currently looking for work,the place I did work at closed. Have several prospects,just waiting to see where I'll end up.

Steve

  I beleive my next endeavor will be engineered wood beams for a profile. I have enough balsa for a Skyray winged clone(have built one already). I plan on building a little oversized,let it cure for several days and then cut to the proper size.I'm thinking that these beams should be tied together at the nose to help with rigidity. Any thoughts?
  Also if you haven't tried bamboo skewers as dowels they work pretty good. I haven't had a joint fail where I've used them.
 Thanks for the best wishes on the job search,today seems to be were everyone starts calling,so should be gainfully employed and back crashing airplanes soon.

Steve
 

 I'm considering using ply to build up mounts. The inboard final piece would have a stringer across the very end(my nephew's Super Clown Arf has this).This plane won't be an exact clone of the Skyray,just the wing and moments. Fuselage will probably look likea '30s air racer or maybe a MiG-3(just to be different).
 1/16" ply(ganged up to1/2")then1/8" doublers back past the spar. All of this will be cross drilled and dowel pinned. I think wood as dowels are better because they absorb glue,you're not counting just on surface adhesion(like using metal).If you want to continue using metal I would look at using threaded rod and some of the newer screw holding glues.This glue is used when a screw hole has gotten worn from the screw being taken out. I've used it on some other wood projects,seems to hold up well.

Steve

 Thanks Pat

Steve

Hi Mikey,
I think one thing has been made abundantly clear by this thread is just like there is more than one way to skin a cat there is more than one way to build a motor mount crutch. Your idea is a very clever method for a crutch.

I have a question, many guys using a 60+ size engine use 1/2" square maple
rails for their crutch, so I was wondering if you used 1/2" size maple.
You could still contour the sides as in your example you just have a little more material to handle the stresses of a bigger engine.

I remenber seeing a Windy U. tape on his version of your style crutch and He was talking about the vibration and stresses created by the Tiger 60 engine.
This leads me to ask do modern 60+ PA / RO engines vibrate and stress a motor crutch as much as a the ST 60.  I just wondered if the new engines  needed the added strength of 1/2 square maple stock to the same degree as the ST 60.

Mikey, I appreciate you sharing your interesting crutch design.
                                                              Thank You,
                                                              Pat Robinson 

Hi Larry,
I agree that they are relentlessly irritating commercial ditties.
                               
                                                                 Pat Robinson

Hi Bill,
Ironically, I started down the path to starting this thread because the pre-assembled crutch in one of your "Playboy" kits was bowed on 2 sides.
I didn't blame you because I know it was probably straight when you finished it and I know that wood will do what it will do, so I didn't even bother calling you about it. My big problem was, when I found all my own stock of maple was bowed and all my local hobby shop maple stock was bowed as well.
This is what led me to wondering about some form of engineered wood so I don't have to put up with this aggravation. I am going to try to bring some of my wood upstairs in an air conditioned space and put my bowed pieces in the oven at a very low temperature to see if I can dry them out and salvage some useable wood from what I have.
I am also going to bug Lowes to order me some thin maple and do a Glue-Lam the way Randy Powell has done.
I am beginning to think that with rock maple it is more important use epoxy to seal the crutch against humidity than it is to seal it against fuel soaking.
I now have a crutch for the Playboy that is epoxy coated and has remained dead straight for weeks which is only awaiting the engine from the tuner
so I can drill the crutch, install blind nuts and start building the kit.

Bill, thanks for your added input and ideas. This whole thread has been a learning experience about wood for me and I hope for others. 

                                                              Pat Robinson

Hi Larry,

Wow! That is some front end assembly. If you have followed this thread you may have seen some guys saying that a milled out one piece crutch made out of hardwood transmits too much vibration to the plane but you aren't using hardwood and your muti-layer approach should help to negate or reduce any vibration issues.  Another advantage to this method is you avoid the tendency
of a one piece hardwood crutch to split lengthwise under an engines pounding.

Two quick questions: 1. Does it give you the solid low vibration front end results it seems designed to do. 2. Is it a "lot heavier" than a conventional
profile front end. I figured I would go ahead and ask questions some guys might have for you.

Larry, this is some very clever design work on your part.  I like It!

Thanks for your excellent contribution to the thread. I think it will be useful to guys creating their own profile plane design.

                                                                  Till next time ,
                                                                   Pat Robinson

A friend of mine who is a professional woodworker gave me small samples that he got at a gunstock factory. As soon as I saw it I thought that might work for motor mounts. Each ply of wood is 1/16 th inch thick. Evidently the wood is dyed before it is laminated.

Teak....try it

Hi Igor,
Thank you for posting you pictures and information on your phenolic motor mounts. Great precision work!!  I have 2 quick questions :

1. How did you mill out the channels in each motor rail ?

2. It looks like each  plywood former fills in the channel in each rail so how do you do that? Do you cut a slot in the former and the rail slides in or or do you glue in a piece as a filler?

Igor thank you very much! , I think your post will open some eyes to an alternative material and alternative design and also provide useful information on creating this type of crutch assembly. Outstanding   

                                                         Thanks again,
                                                         Pat Robinson

Plain Delrin(acetal) is too soft and flexible for motor mounts.  If you want to try plastic try to get some glass-filled PET sheet.  PET glues nicely, and the glass fill will make it stiff enough for good mounts.  If you can't get PET, get glass-filled nylon, or cut down a set of the RC motor mounts for material. They work great.   Tower Hobbies Part LXJ771, LXJ772,or LXJ773 .  They are only $3-4, a lot cheaper than a sheet of plastic will be.  These mounts are probably a bit too flexible for stunt use.  Adding a heavy ply nose ring to stiffen them up might work.