K8 recovering

[lenb]

Thanks Scot.
Thoughtful information.

You should do a tutorial. I'll drop off my 40% Cub to use as a demonstrator.

[blake]

Scot/Stew

Thanks for the pointers, very much appreciated!

The covering saga will continue tonight.....


Blake

[blake]

Ok

I finished the covering today. Still have to shrink and cut out the hatch areas though.
The forward part of the fuselage is ready for glassing as well.
I used just over 11m to cover everything, not bad considering the size of this thing!

Rudder and vertical with one of the elevators.


Starting the rear fuselage



Two sides done, ready for the top.



All done!

Forward part of the fuselage ready for glassing.

Things continue....


Blake

[ingrahal]

I like to use 2 irons one set to adhere and one to shrink. I hate waiting for the iron to cool or heat up. BTW you are using the best iron in my opinion. The Coverite 21st Century irons are electronic controlled, heat really fast and mine have lasted a long time with no problems.

[blake]

Art,

Thanks for the two iron tip!
Yes, I really like this iron, a lot better than my old Topflite one that I finally threw out after it kept zapping me everytime I picked it up!

Just back from holidays so the covering saga will start up again shortly.
I just received my Hyperion LiFe packs for it, so I have all of the electronics now, so I just have to get the covering done and it is ready for the maiden.

Blake

[blake]

Oh,

And I now have one of these....!

[blake]

Ok guys,

Continuing on with this recovering thing.....

I managed to get all of the control surfaces hinged and joined to their respective panels.
My first time using these CA hinges, not bad at all!



I also finally had to glass the forward half of the fuselage, as I had run out of excuses not too!
My wife said I had "glassing avoidance!"



I used the water based Minwax Polycrylic as I had some on hand and have used this system in the past with good results.
The 3M Super 77 spray tack was used as well, and it really helped with getting the light glass cloth to lay down nicely on the contours of the fuselage.



The fuselage all glassed, ready for a light sanding then another coat of Minwax.

Work continues.....


Blake

[blake]

Here are the results of my hinging experience today......

Horizontal first.




And the ailerons....




Rudder was done as well...
I used plastic hinges with a long removable hing pin so the rudder is removable from the fin for transport.


Tip of the removable hing pin.



Rudder is now complete.



More to follow, hopefully tomorrow will bring lots more progress!

Blake

[ARUP]

Lookin' good! The removable hinge pins are great. You will be flying in no time! Will you go to Horizon Hobby Aerotow?

[blake]

Got some good work done on the K8 today.

One thing I wanted to tell you guys about using the Minwax process is that you can iron out any small imperfections. I just use my covering iron and works quite well.
I iron down the edges as you can see in the following photo.



After getting the fuselage sanded and another coat of Minwax applied, I moved onto installing the servos and linkages.
Thanks to Steve R, all of the hard work was done as far as mounts and pushrods were concerned and all I had to do was install the actual servos.
Steve had told me what equipment he had in the airplane so I just copied what he had done and it made things very easy.



The rudder was the first surface to get completed and moving via radio waves.


Elevators were next, and required two servos. All surfaces utilize Hitec HS645MG servos.

Here are both hooked up and working. Again, thanks to SteveR and his well executed previous installation, things went very easily and worked perfectly!

The ailerons were next and again no problems were encountered. Very straight forward and very robust.

Works continues....but I am getting closer!

Blake

[blake]

Back to the fuselage a bit.
Here you can see the forward part hanging from the ceiling. After a quick sand and a little ironing, I gave it another coat of Minwax.
It really doesn't require a lot of product to get a nice surface.

​

I took a covering sample to my local hardware store and they had one of those colour match machines. Worked very, well and I'm very happy with the match they came up with.

Hopefully I will be painting this and the cockpit area tomorrow.


Here you can see the type of surface finish that is possible with the Minwax polycrylic.



Remember the wing root/ fuse junction mess of the stock model. Well here is the reworked area, quite a change I must say.


Another view of the same area.
Much nicer this time around.



Well, that's it for tonight. Painting tomorrow, and hooking up the upper and lower spoilers.

Blake



​​​​​​​

[blake]

I got to spend another good day working on the K8 so it's just about completed now.
Today's tasks were installing the spoilers and painting the fuselage.

I opted to install bottom spoilers in addition to the ones Steve R had already installed on the top surface.
Steve's original ones had blue G10 epoxy plates as the top surface, seeing as I didn't have any of that material on hand for the bottom ones I opted for 3/32 plywood.
Both worked out quite well as you can see from the photos.


One of the new bottom spoilers with the plywood top plate installed and painted. How is that for a great paint colour match to the Solartex!


One of Steve's original G10 capped top spoilers.

View showing one of each. Top surface is the blue spoiler and the colour match is the bottom.
Very happy with the spoiler actuation and travel when plugged in and working. Sure beats fiddling with linkages!


Here are the fuselage and cockpit after their first coat of paint. Both turned out really nice I must say.....not perfect, but then again, the real fullsize airplanes aren't perfect either......so very scale like if you ask me!

Maybe a light sanding tonight and the final coat of paint.
My wife is working on the clothes and accessories for the pilot figure that she found at a second hand store for $1.00.

Should be assembling and balancing tomorrow night....yessssss!!!!!!!!

Local aerotow this weekend, so hopefully it will be maidened there!


Blake

[blake]

Ok guys...

Now that this thing is almost completed I have started thinking about actually flying it!

Here is a rather pressing question for you experts out there......what size of tug will I need to get this thing airborne? I ask because we have our season opener aerotow this coming weekend and the largest tug available is powered with a Zenoah 80 twin, is that big enough?

The field is huge, and the tug pilot very experienced.....

If a no-go with this set up, then I will do the maiden at the Windy ridge event.....your thoughts?

Blake

[lenb]

That should be fine Blake,
The plane does not require a ton of power to pull it, just keep it moving through the air.
If the tug pilot is experience, he'll know to keep you moving especially until you reach a safe bail out altitude if needed. The KA is a floater, so getting airborne should not be any big deal.

Good luck, enjoy the flight.

Len

[blake]

Len,

Thanks for your input, makes me feel a lot better about the first flight.

Blake