Q1 Plans Chapter 5 Page 5-1

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Category: Quickie Plans

Published: Monday, 27 October 2008 01:00

Written by Dan Yager

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HOT-WIRING THE FOAM CORES

In this section, you will hot wire the foam cores for the wing, canard, vertical fin, rudder, ailerons, and elevators.

Begin by reviewing the education section on the techniques for hot-wiring.

Some important points to remember are:

1. Always go slow around the leading edge of an airfoil.
2. Always pause at a notch to allow all of the wire to catch up (i.e. eliminate lag).
3. Never destroy any scraps; they will all be used later.
4. Triple check all template locations before hot-wiring; otherwise, you are likely to make errors.

Nominal lengths on the elevator, rudder and aileron segments are given. You will probably want to make the pieces slightly longer to allow for some trianing later.

After hot wiring, the foam cores should be left in the foam blocks until needed. This will minimize any warpage. Foam should be stored in a cool, dry place and kept out of the sun.

An alternate method is to only hot wire cores right before you use them. This method is suggested for those of you who plan to stretch out construction.

Now is the time to make templates of all of the cores that you will be working with. They are all included full size. We recommend either formica or masonite for the template material. Note that you need to make two of the following patterns: Canard BL1O, Ailerons(inboard and outboard), and rudder. Also, you will need to duplicate the numbers and level lines on each side.

In order to keep the foam cores stable, you should hot-wire the templates at the top of the foam core first.

Main Wing

Square up the three 7” x 14” x 64” blue foam blocks so that they are each 52 long. Hot wire one of them so that it becomes two 7” x 7” x 52” blocks. The two sketches show you how to efficiently obtain the main wingcores out of the four blocks. The notch at one end of the 7” x 21” x 52” block combination is to make the outboard cores 48" long.