streamline wood

[akflyerbob 41]

Anybody have some of the wood for streamlining the  struts and L/gear they would sell?

907-252-4415

[AvidJack 26]

I need to get online more often.  If you have a tablesaw,  and belt sander, it's not that hard to turn out a set for the struts.THe ones that came with the kit were simple wedges, with a "v" cut into it.  can't believe I found pics..  I did mine with a router bit sourced on ebay.  Glue them up, sand them down, fill and finish, and I used the heat-shrink covering used on model airplanes instead of paint.  Worked so well, that I made similar fairings for everything else, using foam insulation sheets.  On those, I didn't glue them in place after sanding, but simply wrapped them  in place with the same heat-shrink covering (name escapes me at the moment.  Sanding the shape in foam takes all of 2-3 minutes, and it's ready to cover.  Just be GENTLE with the hot-air source... foam melts, too.  I bought a decent heat gun after first attempts.  Harbor freight gun is now used for defrosting freezers.

 

-Jack

Austin, TX

[Goldendale-flyer 6]

You might try Uflyit. They have a selection of light weight plastic (pvc I think) fairings. http://www.uflyit.com/

[marksires 484]

I bought a whole pickup bed load of spruce a year or two ago when Wicks was selling out a bunch of overstock/cutoffs in an online auction.  My intent is to use it to make new fairing as I refurbish my Avid.  The existing ones have cracked/separated from the tubing, and my attempts to remove one of the partially separated ones broke it.

I got a LOT more Spruce than I expected - I thought it was a couple of small bundles, and instead I barely fit it all in my 8' bed under the tonneau cover - it looked very pregnant the middle.  Once I get the process of making it worked out, I'll probably make a bunch of it.  I really don't have much else use for the Spruce.

 

[AvidJack 26]

You can see what the blanks from avid/kitfox looked like... figure a three, three and a half width from the front of the strut to the rear.  The interior of the struts near the fuselage I did in two pieces, routed the edges that met the struts, and clamped as shown, after prepping the struts and throwing in a bit of "thickening" flock to the west systems.  The strut fairings are structural, so the light weight PVC would NOT work. I prepped the struts in the same manner, clamped on the unsanded blanks with the same west systems mix, and *then* sanded them fair.  All of the non-structural stuff I've done, I've done the same, but used foam instead of wood, and did NOT epoxy to the tubes.    I hadn't flown in a while, working on the other project, but had done one side of the float supports with the foam streamlines.  Next time I flew, I was thrown by the amount of rudder I had to hold, and was figuring a rudder tab to correct, when it finally hit me... and I did the other side the same way. A little pressure on a long lever arm do make a lot of difference!