The Art of Small

[Matt Piatkowski]

Imagine the 2-56 screw that does not want to go into the 2-56 blind nut in the area of the fuselage that is not easy to access and/or see.
Imagine wearing http://www.vseyewear.com/store-laser/magnifying-products/featured-magnifying-products/donegan-optivisor.html to see the 0.01" diameter drop of CA that appeared out of nowhere on something that suppose to fit somewhere but does not because of this little bump.
Imagine the 40" long edge of one of your balsa 1/8" thick fuselage sides that deviates from the ideal straightness by 0.015".

You know you have to make this edge straight (how straight is straight enough?) because any warp while building the fuselage will cause the deviation of the thrust line, misalignment of wings and general "who knows what happened?" situation while trimming the plane.

These are just few examples of the Art of Small we all have to use while building the plane from scratch.

The obvious answers are:
1. Use larger screws and nuts and make sure you can access all critical areas of the structure without the laparoscopic instruments
2. Be careful while using CA
3. Use fixtures for gluing/connecting everything like in the real airplane building business.

The obvious concerns are:
Ad.1: larger screws and nuts will weight more. If you are building the take-apart stunt plane the difference could be 1/2 oz. or more.
Ad.2: We all know we have to be careful in life, love, family matters, work, money matters, politics and the C/L Stunt planes building and flying but Ooops happen. Please refer to the https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/forrest_gump/quotes.
Ad.3: The time of preparation and cost of such fixtures/tooling is prohibitive for most of us.

THE SOLUTION: buy RTF C/L stunt plane for mere ~2,500 EU (plus shipping and applicable taxes/custom fees/dues and whatever is applicable in your country and, instead of getting slowly but surely blind trying to master The Art of Small, enjoy life while waiting 2 years for (uncertain) delivery of your precious new F2B plane.

Happy Flying,
M

[Tim Wescott]

Fine.  I'll fall for the troll.

THE SOLUTION: buy RTF C/L stunt plane for mere ~2,500 EU (plus shipping and applicable taxes/custom fees/dues and whatever is applicable in your country and, instead of getting slowly but surely blind trying to master The Art of Small, enjoy life while waiting 2 years for (uncertain) delivery of your precious new F2B plane.

And render yourself ineligible to compete in the US Nats, and miss out on a whole bunch of fun.

I haven't tracked it for the last two World Championships, but in 2014 the top ten was all home-built airplanes except for one or two Yatsenkos (sp, yes yes) flown by Yatsenkos -- which I think comes pretty close to "owner built".

[Brett Buck]

The obvious concerns are:
Ad.1: larger screws and nuts will weight more. If you are building the take-apart stunt plane the difference could be 1/2 oz. or more.

You could use 6-32s and drill down the center. You really only need the thread part, not the wasted beryllium down the middle. Of course you have long since moved on from pedestrian old hardened steel and titanium fasteners, right?

    Seriously, however, I feel for you a bit, but stuff like that happens to everyone. It's part of mastering the craft.  The options are obvious, try gently running a tap into the hole to break the CA loose. Alternative is to use CA remover, leave it on long enough to soften it up, and then shear it out. Failing that (or when the nut pulls out and starts to turn), minor surgery.

       In the future, giving up an *entirely trivial* 1/2 ounce to get more reliability/durability/robustness in the stressed areas is a no-brainer trade-off. It is not an "obvious" concern, it's an utterly irrelevant consideration. 20 years from now, when you have mastered nearly every other aspect, then, you can make valid decisions over tiny differences. If you want to save microscopic amounts of weight, use aluminum or nylon fasteners in non-stressed environments. I have a bag of 1000 2-56 nylon machine screws, they cost something like $4. Note that you could (and people have) used titanium fasteners in the stressed areas, but the cost is not worth it. 5 more gallons of fuel and some nice free trim adjustments will make FAR MORE difference than saving 1/4 ounce on screw weight.

     Brett