Strengthening The Wing Saddle

[Britpilot]

Many people have suggested adding some strength to the wing saddle. As I had already knocked a lump of foam out of the front part of the saddle on the fuselage of my SCLP I decided it was time to do the "popsicle" stick strengthening trick. (I suppose that's the "ice lolly" trick for our British readers?) I cut the pieces of popsicle stick to shape I wanted and used these as templates to mark the fuselage. I then cut out a little foam with a soldering iron to let the popsicle sticks sit flush. Happy that all fitted together properly I epoxied the popsicle sticks in place. I had to smooth the set epoxy on the rear popsicle stick a little with a Dremel tool to get the wing to fit snug as I overdid the epoxy a bit! I had some 2mm thick self adhesive closed cell foam strip leftover from some project or other. I cut some strips out of this foam and stuck them on the fuselage where the wing sits to make a soft bed for the wing to mount onto. This also stops the wing sliding around so much in the saddle.

[badlands]

Never throw away ice lolly sticks!

Nice job.

[jbess]

Trying to keep my mods down to stuff that will keep my plane intact from learning to fly it. This was one of them. I used 15 minute epoxy because I am new to using that stuff, and didn't trust myself to get it done in 5 mins:



You can see I was already starting to lose some foam on the front here:

[flydiver]

Oooo, I see a Tamiya connector in there. Get thee gone lousy Tamiya.

[jbess]

Feb 7, 2010 3:49:41 GMT 1 flydiver said:

Oooo, I see a Tamiya connector in there. Get thee gone lousy Tamiya.

In Britpilot's last pic? Yeah, why is that?

[Dillzio]

Tamiya connectors are obsolete when compared with deans connectors or EC3 plugs. They're OK for lower current, but they're really not up to the standard for LiPo batteries. Brit, I think it's time for you to get with the 21st century man! :-) If you don't know how to solder the plugs, there are videos on youtube, as well as threads on this forum, but somehow I think you'll manage anyway (you do seem to be rather technically inclined).

I just reinforced the front of my battery saddle with medical-type paper-tape and it seems to be holding up fine. The popsicle stick in the back is a must tho.

[Britpilot]

Don't you go worrying yourself my lads. That tamiya connector as you call it is from radio shack and it is the connector for my LED wing navigation and landing lights.

supercubclub.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=tt&action=display&thread=2793
supercubclub.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=tt&action=display&thread=2796

Good little Super Cub driver that I am I have already upgraded to Deans plugs for my LIPO connections.

BP

[N4768Z]

I completed the wing saddle Popsicle reinforcements a couple of months ago. After some bad landings, wing clips etc, the saddle still appears to be creeping back. The distance from the front of the wing to the back of the wing has opened up maybe 1/4 of and inch. I'm going to just glue and pile up more Popsicle sticks to the saddle to fill in the gap unless someone else has a better suggestion. It's that or a new fuse I spose.

[N4768Z]

Well, I filled the gap using a well cut paint stir stick from Lowe's. It's thicker than a popsicle stick so it filled the gap better. Now the wing sits in the front of the saddle like it's supposed to.

[benski]

I'll probably get a new fuelage when I'm shaping a piece of 2 X 4 to take up the slack in that saddle!

[leisureshoot]

my problem is now that I've reinforced the back of the saddle, my wings are shearing at the outside edges of the plastic reinforcement, on the trailing edge.

I'm attempting a plywood stiffener along the trailing edge of the wing. I've cut out a section of damaged foam in the back, center of the wing, and Gorilla glued a new portion of wing foam from an old wing I had taken off earlier, and epoxied a 1 inch by 8 inch strip of plywood even with the trailing edge of the wing.

It took out a small amount of dihedral, but I have ailerons so I'm not worried about that. We'll see how this works. If it does, I'll put up a pic.

[skom80]

i laugh at the if found call this number lol..but its a good idea depending on where you fly...at the park i fly at there is a guy you can call and he will climb a tree if he has to to get ur plane out...and he only charges 20 bucks..i used him once when i was learning..i remember being so broken hearted looking at it in a tree...then i saw his name on the board !!!