Aeroworks QB 150cc YAK 55M

[Joe Hunt]

Okay, the JR servos showed up today. The wing hardware that Aeroworks includes in the QB is in the background. AW gives you steel pushrods with a tool, quality balljoints and quality nuts and bolts. AW uses these pushrods and the plastic Hitec servo arms that come with the Hitec servos with no problems whatsoever, and AW test pilots fly their surfaces harder than me, for sure. But, for me, I'm going with titanium pushrods and all stainless steel nuts and bolts from www.microfasteners.com . They clean up easy and look real nice. Looks like 3" is the right length on the pushrods (I'll verify that later during the installation) and I have those in standard H9. I'd like to get them in blue from Team Associated, we'll see if that gets done. haha Also I think the DUBRO blue ball joints will look cool, so I am going with those:

I'm using the included AW control horns because I like the way they spread the load out over the hard point. I like a single bolt better, but I'd have to put in my own hard point to be sure if I was going to use a single bolt. And, again, that is the wrong length blue pushrod, but I want to go blue if I get around to it. haha

[Joe Hunt]

Okay, yeah, so I walk in after dinner and Monkey is all, "Wtf did you do to the plane?!" And, I'm all, "Ah geez, you're kidding me man!"

So, Monkey says, "What the hell did you do?!" And, I'm all, "What the hell did =you= do?!"

Then he admits it, he was trying to pull off the black checks on the back of the wings and all hell broke loose. Turns out AW really irons the covering down bombproof style now. Lapped covering and leading edges of the wings have the covering pretty much permanently attached. Don't even try to take any covering up unless you're ready to recover... Monkey will tell you! So, Monkey says, "Don't start throwing poop around, I'll have this recovered in a flash."

"One thing, Joe, where in the world is my pen?"

[Naughty Monkey]

Yeah, sure, blame the monkey....

[Joe Hunt]

[Naughty Monkey]

Nicely done!

[Joe Hunt]

[Joe Hunt]

About epoxy... I make sure I'm using it 1 to 1. You don't need "a little extra hardener." It's a better product at the recommended 1 to 1. Your bottles should be being used up equally:

[Joe Hunt]

Some tips and tricks on hinging the this particular (and recondite?) model:

https://youtu.be/KGhjycl9vH8

[Joe Hunt]

Took care of the other wing and changed the black stripe on top to blue.

[Joe Hunt]

Okay, some good and bad about the hinging. One thing I want to make clear is it doesn't take any time. 14 years ago on even the nicest ARFs you had to cut your own hinge slots. And, then glue them. Here you only have to glue them in and that does not take any time. If you glue the surfaces first, like I do, and then let them setup before gluing them into the plane, it is also easy work. So... fast and easy. Also, I'm getting 65 degrees of travel up and down on the ailerons. So. that is nice. If I were to cut the slots deeper I could get even more, but I probably won't use more than 50, or so.

Couple of things I've discovered though, there's a small refinement that might make it possible to have the hinging come out absolutely perfect. Mine is not 100% perfect. I have 65 degrees of travel but I have a slight binding past about 30 degrees. I believe two things are causing this and the main problem I believe can be avoided quite easily during the gluing of the hinges. So, I think I have a slight binding that will go away with a little hinge stretch (not ideal). And, I think I can keep you having much, if any, binding. I'm going to try it out on the elevators, but that will still not be an apples to apples comparison. If any of you want to drop by Costa Mesa with your wings I will glue in your hinges for a scientific comparison. haha

So, first thing that I wonder about would really need to be a small factory refinement (and may or may not be a big deal because of how short each pin is). But in this drawing you can see that the hinge pins are all at a different distance from the wing. They are parallel to each other but on different planes. The hinge pins are not in a line with each other. A factory refinement could have the jig for the hinge hole drilling setup at a slight angle so as to have all the hinge pins in a straight line:

Currently:

Possibly better: