RADIO CONTROL SLOPE SOARING - 2005/05

THE “BUILDING WITH Speed and Efficiency” article in the
November 2004 MA hit a responsive chord, and more readers
responded to that topic than to any other article or column
published in 2004. It looks as though we have some builders out
there. The tips presented in that article were:
1) Thoroughly read the kit instructions.
2) Review the tools you’ll need.
118 MODEL AVIATION
Dave Garwood, 5 Birch Ln., Scotia NY 12302; E-mail: [email protected]
RADIO CONTROL SLOPE SOARING
3) Gather building supplies and materials.
4) Is this the time for shop improvements?
5) Make sure you have all small parts you’ll need in stock.
6) Follow logical procedures.
7) Prepare your finishing supplies and materials.
8) Keep safety in mind.
9) Get help if needed.
10) Make building an enjoyable time.
During the time I’ve spent in my basement workshop this
winter, five more topics have come to mind. Four of those relate to
storing and protecting delicate equipment, which help keep our
tools and instruments in good condition.
I’m trying to practice the “A place for everything, and
everything in its place” doctrine because finding a tool quickly and
having it clean and in serviceable condition makes my building
work go smoothly with fewer headaches.
The fifth item covers shop solvents, which are used for cleanup
and to keep tools in good shape for their next job. The sixth
explores the wide variety of tapes available to help in enjoying our
hobby.
11) Stock storage boxes on shelves. To reduce the search time
for items I keep available, I made a dedicated storage region for
medium-size parts and tools such as the soldering iron and
collections of small parts such as servos.
I was wasting time and pulling my hair out finding a servo I
knew I had and searching for heat-shrink tubing “I know I have
Dave Wenzlick’s Electric Jet Factory MiG-
15, modified for Slope Soaring, at
Southern California PSS Festival. Chovan
photo.
Original-design foamie warbird racers
over Wilson Lake, Kansas, in 2003: Mike
Bailey’s Sea Fury and Joe Chovan’s Me
109.
Dave’s paper-box storage depot for small
and medium parts and tools. “A place for
everything, and everything it its place.”
Carl Maas Jr.’s B-29 releases Carl Maas Sr.’s Bell X-1 rocket
plane at 2002 Southern California Power Scale Soaring (PSS)
Festival. Joe Chovan photo.
around here somewhere.” There is no point in stocking tools,
supplies, and materials if you can’t find what you have in stock,
and you have to go to the store anyway to advance a project.
The boxes I have were being discarded at work—too good to
throw away—so I began collecting them, keeping them out of the
landfill. After all, reuse beats recycling.
I purchased two sets of medium-duty steel shop shelves at
Kmart and combined all of the shelves into one set of uprights. In
a 12 x 30-inch corner of the shop I now have 48 medium boxes
and a few larger boxes on the bottom shelf. Now, if I can
remember that I put the tool, part, or supply material in a box and
labeled it, I can find it by just reading the labels.
Similar white boxes may not be appearing in the trash at your
workplace, but if you like this idea you can order Indestructo
Mailers (part 114596R2) from Ship-It, 300 Eagle Way, Twinsburg
OH 44087. The company’s Web site address is www.shipit
catalog.com. Since 100 is the minimum quantity you can order,
you may want to split an order with a modeling friend.
12) Put small parts in section boxes. More and more I’ve been
keeping tiny parts in sectioned plastic boxes. This makes nuts,
bolts, clevises, etc. much easier to locate.
I’ve gotten the boxes from Kmart and mail-order suppliers.
Fishing-equipment suppliers offer a great variety of sizes. I’ve
come to like the softer plastic boxes more than the harder plastic
boxes because they resist damage (cracked tops, broken hinges)
better.
Two designs I like are the “Hobbico Parts Box 7x4x1”
w/Adjustable Compartment” (item LXRH17) and “Hobbico Parts
Box 11x7x2” w/Adjustable Compartment” (item LXRH18) from
Tower Hobbies at www.towerhobbies.com. The smaller of those
will fit inside the white paper boxes on my shelves. I’ve never
been so organized!
13) Use recloseable bags. For small- and medium-size parts
that need extra protection, including moisture resistance, it’s hard
to beat zip-close bags.
May 2005 119
Useful shop solvents: rubbing alcohol, mineral spirits, Goo
Gone, acetone, and Ironex. Use the mildest one that will do the
job; be careful with the flammable stuff.
Small, plastic, sectioned boxes keep similar small parts easily
accessible. These containers make building and repair projects
go faster and smoother.
I purchased “Minigrip Mini
Assortment Pak 4 mil” (SKU 090282R2)
from Ship-It. I find the 4 mil-thickness bags
much tougher than the 2 mil bags and well
worth the extra cost. This assortment pack
has met my needs for more than three years,
even after giving bunches away to my wife
and her thread-bender friends and to other
modelers.
Uline Shipping Supply Specialists—
www.uline.com—also sells recloseable bags.
I’ve seen them in smaller quantities at
hardware stores.
14) Store delicate equipment in hard
cases. Often our equipment and tools need to
be protected from knocks and bumps. I keep
transmitters and cameras in pistol cases that
come from Kmart and shooting-supply
stores. They protect the gear with foam
inserts. My VOM multimeter is protected in
a smaller hard case that came from a surplus
equipment supplier.
15) Keep shop solvents in stock. These
are extremely useful for cleaning tools and
parts, and I use several of them. I like to start
with the gentlest solvent and progress to
something more volatile and aggressive in its
dissolving power if the milder product fails at
the task.
• Isopropyl alcohol, also called rubbing
alcohol, is safe enough to rub on your skin,
yet it will dissolve many materials and clean
quite a few messes, including excess epoxy
before it cures. It’s available at drug stores
and grocery stores.
• Mineral spirits, or paint thinner for some
oil-based paints, is also a mild chemical. It
cleans numerous things, including many
petroleum-based materials, better than
alcohol. Get it in a hardware-store paint
department.
• Goo Gone, made by Magic American
Corporation, is the only solvent I’ve found
that will remove old, hardened hinge-tape
residue without damaging a painted finish.
It’s as close to a universal modeling solvent
as anything I’ve found, so I keep a bottle in
the toolbox and in the shop. It’s available at
home-supply stores, hardware stores, and
some grocery stores.
• Coverite Ironex works well at removing
excess adhesive from a covering iron or a
freshly covered model, and it’s the best
solvent I’ve found for cleaning accumulated
adhesive and general goop from shop
scissors. Get it at the hobby shop or from
Tower Hobbies.
• Acetone is available in the paint
department at hardware and home-supply
stores. It’s highly volatile, thus it’s
flammable, and it tends to dry your skin,
but I can’t think of anything I’ve tried it
on that it hasn’t dissolved.
Acetone is the active ingredient in
cyanoacrylate dissolver and nail-polish
remover, and those materials can be
purchased at the hobby shop or the drug
store. Straight acetone is a powerful
solvent; use it with caution.
16) Make use of special tapes. I used
to think the modern world was held
together by threaded fasteners, but now I
know it’s secure with tape. We use a lot
of tape in model building, and it seems
like the more specialty tapes you have,
the more you need. The ones I use often
enough to have restocked are as follows.
• I use masking tape for masking paint,
keeping glue away from places I don’t
want it, and making labels. I find the
quality of name-brand tape worth the
extra cost. Masking tape tends to harden
in time and should be removed as soon
after application as practical.
• Color cellophane packing tape works
great for decorating foam Combat wings,
as well as for sealing shipping boxes.
• Filament tape, also called strapping
tape, is used where and when I need
something tougher than cellophane tape,
including for stiffening and strengthening
EPP-foam model airframes.
Bidirectional strapping tape has
filaments running in two directions, 90°
apart, and provides strength and stiffness
in both directions. I particularly like the
bidirectional tape for foamie wing LEs
and for hinging ailerons on foamies. If
it’s not available locally, you can order it
from Fast-Pack.com at www.fastpack.
com.
• Mylar hinge tape is the best material to
use for attaching ailerons and flaps to
sheeted foam-core wings. It has an
extremely aggressive adhesive and
generally can’t be repositioned once it’s
stuck down, so apply this tape carefully.
It resists deterioration from sunlight, so it
lasts a long time in service. When
removed, the adhesive residue can be
cleaned up with Goo Gone.
• Scotch 845 Book Tape is a high-quality,
clear material that looks like cellophane
packing tape, but it’s tougher and lasts
longer without its adhesive hardening and
loosening. I have used it as hinge tape
when I have run out of the Mylar hinge
tape. I get mine at an office-supply store.
• Double-stick, thin, foam servo-mount
tape is wonderful for mounting not only
servos, but switches and other small
items. It sticks best to nonporous
surfaces, so if you’re mounting a servo to
a wood surface, seal the wood grain with
sanding sealer or thin cyanoacrylate glue.
I’ll close this month with a quote,
although I’m not sure who to attribute it
to. “The world is moving so fast these
days that the man who says it can’t be
done is usually interrupted by someone
who is doing it.” MA