Cardinal rebuild - which adhesive?

[Terry Caron]

Hi all -

A Nashville flying buddy, Steve Maddox, gave me a Cardinal with a broken nose and a bit of wing damage.
I have the wing back together, ready for finish.
The nose is back in place with dowel strengtheners and tacked with a couple shims between fuse/wing.
I want to minimize "rebuild vibrations" and there's a MOL 1/16th" gap all around between 'em and I'm wondering which of these adhesives would best fill/glue them:
20 min epoxy
Gorilla glue
Elmer's white glue
Thin & Gel CyA
Also have JB Weld, but it'd require forcing into gaps and probably wouldn't completely fill.

Or maybe shim-fill and CyA?

Or sumpin' else/a better way?

Thanks.

Terry

[Leester]

Is this a Profile Cardinal ? If so I'd fill as much with balsa and use GOOD epoxy 1hr cure or longer and keep checking the alignment.

[Terry Caron]

I should have said, but yes, an ARF - I understand nose repairs on them often result in vibration.
Alignment is being held temporarily by a couple CyA'd balsa shims.

Terry

[ray copeland]

Terry, gorilla glue is an excellent choice for these kind of repairs. Use a sprayer to lightly mist the areas to be glued with water, wipe excess water off and glue. Plan to spend about 30 to 45 minutes standing by with rags to continually wipe off the excess foaming and you will have a very strong joint and any gaps should be filled.

[RknRusty]

Terry, gorilla glue is an excellent choice for these kind of repairs. Use a sprayer to lightly mist the areas to be glued with water, wipe excess water off and glue. Plan to spend about 30 to 45 minutes standing by with rags to continually wipe off the excess foaming and you will have a very strong joint and any gaps should be filled.

So that's what that stuff was on the Skyray! It sure filled the gaps allright.

I would have said Epoxy and hit it with a heat gun to make it flow, but I haven't tried Gorilla glue yet. Maybe I'll get some and try it.
Rusty

[Terry Caron]

Tnx for your replies guys.
Gorilla glue sounds promising - I like the gap-filling function.
Lighter than the other options too, I'd think.
How's it for strength and longevity?

Terry

[john e. holliday]

I was going to say use the Super-Fil for closing up the gaps.  It stays in place and so far no cracks on the joints on my profiles I've used it on.   Of course full cure is 24 hours no matter what some say.   Gorilla glue may be good , but my experience it does not have a long shelf life.

[ray copeland]

The bottle I am on now is 2 years old. Very strong stuff, I use it around the house for most everything including golf club repairs, my wife's antique wood chairs and recently used it on pushrod connectors for a couple 1/2a's. Why ya think they call it Gorilla Glue ?

[Will Hinton]

I would fill as much with shims as possible, then use the GG.

[Terry Caron]

I went with Gorilla glue as simplest.
I found that wiping off excess expansion with a dry rag left many bubbles open, but a saliva-moistened finger sorta compacted them.
Doesn't leave a smooth "fillet", but a dressable surface.
May have done better had I not used the rag for the first several wipes - that took off the majority of the expansion, which could have been smoothed out.
Or maybe a damp rag would do better.
Time will tell about strength, vibration and such.

Thanks for your replies all.

regards,

Terry

[RknRusty]

Terry, I mentioned the repairs I uncovered on my old Skyray in my above post, quoting Ray Copeland. He had repaired it many times before passing it along to me. When I re-covered the wing and found lots of old repairs had come loose from fatigued glue. The Gorilla joints were the only ones still holding together solid as a rock. He hadn't prettied them up since it was already a trainer-beater, but I'm sure it can be done. I flew that old Glueray to first place in a contest last weekend. I should re-name it the Ray-Ray. It's a tough old bird.
Rusty

[Terry Caron]

Great to hear and congratulations Rusty!
I feel a lot more confident for success next weekend when I plan to give the Cardinal a try.
Thanks.

Terry

[Perry Rose]

A balsa tripler or cheek piece will hold the nose together. 3/8 or 1/2" thick back over the wing leading edge. A must for all profiles in my book.

[Terry Caron]

It has a 1/2" cheekpiece to the high point of the wing, which is where it broke.

Terry

[EddyR]

One piece of 1/2" balsa and you have a new body?? Why glue it
Also those Brodak leadouts are famous for breaking right at the bellcrank. I sold my Cardinal to Ty and they broke a month later.

[Terry Caron]

I fixed the leadouts first.
Much quicker to drill a few holes and glue up.
And the covering is so patched, taped and ratty that a new fuse'd stick out like a sore thumb, so a lot more time/effort to strip and recover.
I've never used 'cote, so gotta learn about that to patch it some more.
Besides, it's to be a back-up to my Lite Freak trainer, which I'm still learning to fly, and a flap-trainer.  

Terry

[EddyR]

Glad you replaced the leadouts. They seem to break right at the bellcrank. The wire is to brittle. I only has 15 flight on mine when I sold it and they broke after not many mor flights. I remember two of them crashing at out Huntersville contest with broken leadouts
Ed