How to sheet a foamie

by

Brad Moore

Brad sent us this building sequence that he did using our F4U Corsair. Along with the balsa sheeting, he made a number of other changes that included landing gear and a plywood spar method that will work excellent in all of our foamies. First, Brad wrote us a little note that read as follows then check out the pictures he sent and read his closing comments for a few more details:

Jim and Ken:

We continue to have fun with your foam airplanes here in Northeast Indiana! I have a Corsair and B model Mustang, Dave has a Zero and Corsair. They are EXCELLENT aircraft! Fun!

I was so impressed with the Corsair, I wanted a sheeted model with gear for a sport Plane.

The pictures are pretty much self-explanatory. I built balsa tail components using the coroplast as templates, sheeted the whole thing, and covered it with Monokote. It flies GREAT! The gear does not seem to impede the flying characteristics at all...but of course, they slow it down a bit. 

I have an OS .28 heli engine in it, turning an APC 10x5, and an Airtronics radio system. It weighs 3lbs 12 ozs all up, ready to fly. It doesn't quite go vertical but it cooks!

Ground handling is excellent and it jumps into the air. Landings are still very well controlled. I have flown it twice now and I am totally pleased with the results. I can always take the gear off, glass the bottom, and go into combat!

I didn't want to put the gear in the wings... and I'm glad I didn't. The first flight was a flame-out and it stalled onto the gear pretty hard. The gear didn't budge at all!

I thought you might like to see it. keep up the good work!

Brad Moore             E-mail: bkmoore8555@hotmail.com

Brad installed a hardwood landing gear block and glued and pinned it with dowels to the firewall. Notice how he very accurately marked the position of the motor mount blind nuts and the tank position.
The dowels were cut flush with the face of the firewall and the landing gear block was recessed into the fuselage and glued into place.
The wings were setup and glued together as per our instructions with epoxy.
Since balsa ailerons were to be installed, a balsa cap strip needed to be glued to the trailing edge to facilitate gluing the hinges onto the wing.
Now this is a very clever way to strengthen the foam wing and Brad says it works great with taped up wings also. Plus the method will work fine on our other planes as well.

After the wing center is glued to the wing panels, He uses a saw blade (hack saw)  to slice a slot in the wing all the way through from top to bottom.
(this is looking from the trailing edge side)

After the slot is cut, slide a piece of 1/32"  aircraft plywood into the slot and mark along the top and bottom of the wing. Remove the ply and cut out the shape of the wing and you will have a plywood wing joiner that is exactly the right shape and size for the wing. Then glue it into the slot with wood glue or epoxy and you will have a very strong and stiff wing!
After the wing joiner spar is cured, sand it smooth and start sheeting with thin balsa. 1/32 or 1/64 sheet. 
After wing is done, trial fit it to the fuse. Note that the tail sections are being fit up too. Brad used our coroplast tails as patterns and made some of balsa then covered them with monokote.
Here the fuse is sheeted and wing fitted. Looks like the tails are fitted and glued also.
Underside after sheeting. Brad used a .28 Heli engine.
Tails section close up with rudder. This is a 4 channel plane with rudder, elevator, aileron, and throttle.
The canopy area showing the placement of the radio gear. It is laid out much like our plans but with an extra rudder servo. 
completed plane - top, front, and bottom views. 

This a neat way to do a foam plane and should be very durable plus you can make them look much better with monokote instead of tape. However, I have seen balsa covered wings and tails explode in a collision with one of our tape balls (taped up plane) and the tape ball kept on flying but the sheeted plane didn't. 
But if you want a more precise flying sport plane I think this is one way to go. You could use the same idea and use thin fiberglass also and the methods would be similar. The plywood wing spar method is a GREAT idea and would work super no matter how you cover the kit!!
This is a very simple and effective way to put landing gear on our kits and should work similarly with our other kits also. It would be interesting to try retracts - hmmm, I wonder......

Well a BIG thanks goes out to Brad for providing the pictures and comments and remember creativity is the name of the game here. Just because we tell you how to build our kits a certain way, should never preclude anyone from trying a new technique. We have some of the cleverest friends and customers around - keep up the good work!

Thanks again Brad!
Ken:

By all means, you can use my full name and email address. I enjoy chatting with our friends in RC.

I used the 3M77 glue to sheet the plane.  The edges wanted to pop up in places, especially around the curves, so I taped the seams with masking tape to hold it.  I discovered I could iron the Monokote right over the tape, so I left it on.

I used 1/32 balsa sheeting and glass-taped the seams.  The sheeting wrapped around the fuse like heavy paper... it is not that difficult to do.  I used the coroplast parts as templates for the wing saddle cuts and the rest was easy.

We fly from a grass field so retracts are pretty rare around here.  If I had a paved runway available closer than Muncie, I would certainly try a set in the next project!  I thought the gear block would be easier and save a lot of re-engineering in the gull drops of the wing to attach gear there.

By the way; one of my reservations at first was ground handling.  But, like the rest of the performance, I was very pleased.  It tracked well and had plenty of rudder for taxi, take off, and landing.  The tail gear is simply a wire run through the fuse to a 90 bend into the rudder. I squeezed the gear wire between the control horn and base for strength.

It was a fun project and not difficult to do.  As you can tell, I didn't go to much length to sculpt or round the fuse.  I wanted to get this baby in the AIR!  I like the hollow fuselage idea for next time!

Thanks again for the nice letter. Keep up the good work out there!

Brad Moore