Durable landing gear for foamie?

[solentlife]

I have come around to making my own L/G .... I use control rod 2mm black metal .... it's more stiff than piano wire ....

I buy bundles of 10 from Hobby King ... cheap and cheerful.

This way I can make to my own length .. I can thread the end with tap / die set to put a nut to hold wheel ... I can bind together to make V strut L/G using carpet thread and CA ...

How durable ? What about a 60 Glow powered biplane - is that big enough ?

For mounting into wing / fuselage ......... a 6mm ply plate is more than enough for most models .. a groove along for wire to sit in, a hole for vertical short part to engage to keep wire in position. The ply plate epoxied into wing. How to hold wire to plate ? I use self-tapper screws with the heads fitted with wider washers ... no U clips needed.

The beauty of this - you can replace / make to suit what you want ... and 2mm stock fits many of the stock wheel axle holes ... or the plastic stoppers used.


Nigel

[road king 97]

Originally Posted by solentlife

I have come around to making my own L/G .... I use control rod 2mm black metal .... it's more stiff than piano wire ....

I buy bundles of 10 from Hobby King ... cheap and cheerful.

This way I can make to my own length .. I can thread the end with tap / die set to put a nut to hold wheel ... I can bind together to make V strut L/G using carpet thread and CA ...

How durable ? What about a 60 Glow powered biplane - is that big enough ?

For mounting into wing / fuselage ......... a 6mm ply plate is more than enough for most models .. a groove along for wire to sit in, a hole for vertical short part to engage to keep wire in position. The ply plate epoxied into wing. How to hold wire to plate ? I use self-tapper screws with the heads fitted with wider washers ... no U clips needed.

The beauty of this - you can replace / make to suit what you want ... and 2mm stock fits many of the stock wheel axle holes ... or the plastic stoppers used.


Nigel

Pictures man pictures ! lol joe

[solentlife]

Pictures of my L/G ... sorry but you'll have to wait till I return home ...

I thought I had some uploaded - but turns out not.

I'll remedy that as soon as I can ...

Nigel

[road king 97]

Originally Posted by solentlife

Pictures of my L/G ... sorry but you'll have to wait till I return home ...

I thought I had some uploaded - but turns out not.

I'll remedy that as soon as I can ...

Nigel

Thanks Nigel ,i just happen to be trying to think of a way to beef up my funcub landing gear. joe

[solentlife]

I used to 'beef up' L/G .... adding another strut or arm to gear ... swapping wire gear with alloy plate etc. Usually what happened was I lost the 'give' of the designed gear, damaged model more when it broke away etc.

Anyway back to my DIY L/G .... with scratchbuilding and lack of hooby shops and gear where I live - you learn to devise alternative ways ... some work but are rubbish ... others like this one are just plain excellent.

Like many - I've bent piano wire ... used kit stuff etc. with collets and soldered washers etc. to hold wheels on. But this way - the metal is strong enough to take the loads and unlike piano wire can have thread cut on end to have a nut for holding wheel on ... much neater. Do not use the factory thread as this for some reason is weak where the thread ends and snaps of.

The only niggle is the wait for the bundle frrom HK ...

Lets take my SE5 ......... L/G consists of two V sets ... one each side. I take 2 wires ... bend together so matching and then join middle by overlapping fuselage width. Bind with strong thread and Zap with CA. Absolutely no need to fight with fuse wire and solder.



Bend up rear set ... and bind / CA to front etc.

Here you see results before wheels and foam strips creating the wood beam look




What is doubly interesting ... the cabanes and interplane struts are from same wire material ! Then overlaid / sandwiched by foam ....

The rigging wires are the same carpet thread used to bind tthe wire legs .......

I made a set for my ME109 ... which I shall photo once I get home ... showing another format .........

Nigel

[dahawk]

One thing I've found, especially on tail-draggers, is to experiment with the rake angle and also where the mains are located with respect to CG. I fly off a grass field and virtually all my lighweight, smaller foamie planes are prone to the bloody "nose-over". Drives me insane. So, I converted my experimental PZ-T-28 into a tail dragger and after alot of trial and error(mostly error) got it to taxi, take-off and land on grass w/out nosing over. I kept shimming the rake angle forward until it was ideal. No real measurements, just trial and error. The bad news was when a tree got in the way End of test.

+1 on Chellie's aluminum struts. Me want. Eloquently simple solution. Lightweight, shock-absorbing, ease of install, adaptable to many planes, etc. Looks great too !

-Hawk

[solentlife]

Originally Posted by road king 97

I think over 100 tail dragger kits i have built all sad to toe in the wheels for better tracking . I dont know about your bibe tho. http://www.rmfm.org/ground_loop.htm

Considering that L/G usually gets bent / deformed / twisted on most landings ... this Toe-in / Toe-out argument leaves me wondering if I'm so bad at landings !! But then again I watch others and know that I am not !

Given that often I have to 'tweak' my wheels straight - I am danged if I can remember In or Out !! I just make them straight as I can.

Nigel

[solentlife]

As promised - the Nigel Guide to DIY Landing Gear :

First you need suitable 2mm or similar rod ... I use Hobby Kings Control Rod packs, about 30cm long and 2mm diam. A pack of 10 is peanuts.

2 rods ready to start ...



We need to decide IN or OUT working gear ie Spitfires and ME109's have outward retracting gear ... Hurricanes, P51's have inward ...

Measure up - install blocks into wings. I use 10mm sq block epoxied into slots .. then fill any gaps with Hot Glue ... this speeds things up.

Drill vertical pin hole that keeps Leg at angle required.

Now we place BOTH rods in vice and bend the end short pin part - do not use threaded end - that will be discarded.



Then we measure leg height from axle centre of wheel to block desired ... and bend BOTH together to get both legs same.



Then we bend the axle part of the leg to suit wheel, cut of extra leaving a reasonable amount so we can cut a thread ...



Finally we have l legs with standard M3 nuts to retain the wheels ... nice and neat.



We tweak the ends to get correct angles of sit ... self-tappers into blocks to hold the legs in place ..



I would use clamp plates - but have run out - so wide head tappers do the job.

Here's finished job ...



This is a scratchbuild Me109 .. based on a free plan and a wing left over from a Lanyu RTF Me109 I had ... I married the two and bingo !

Hope the above is useful ... it's simple to do, means you can replace all those crap LG legs we see on kits etc. I made front leg for my Cessna similar way.

Nigel

[robschonk]

HK just introduced a snap-in set for the Bixler for four bux. Might work.

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...Tailwheel.html

[road king 97]

I own a old heavy cast iron wire bender that i bought 30 years ago and have never wore it out. Today they sell plastic ones but they dont look like they are made to last very long. A flying friend is scratch building a plane now and is using my old heavy wire bender but iam missing it . Nice gear Nigel

[solentlife]

Originally Posted by robschonk

HK just introduced a snap-in set for the Bixler for four bux. Might work.

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...Tailwheel.html

Bought full set Trike incl Nose steering servo from HK for $6 .. but it's nice to make own and know it works !!

Nigel