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The NotForSale

20 years ago there was an article in Model Airplane News about an airplane by Blane Stetler that supposedly handled really well and it included the plans to build it yourself! After reading the article I was immediately hooked and bought all the wood for it, including a set of full size plans and had dreams of building my first RC plane. Forget the fact that I had no idea how to fly... then when I seriously thought about the build I realized that if I put a few weeks or more into building this, I would be quite upset if I crashed it on the first flight!

So I put the materials away and decided to wait until I learned how to fly before trying to build a balsa airplane. Life and my two young boys got in the way and I never quite got around to building my now, dream plane... until a couple weeks ago. My club had a contest for building balsa airplanes from a kit or plans, which was right up my alley and I signed up.

I'll post the pictures I took while building this plane and share some of the thoughts and problems that I ran across. All in all it was a fantastic thing to do. Not just because I finally built the NotForSale, but it actually taught me a bunch of things about building with balsa.

After I finished the NFS I decided to pull out my old GP 540T that had been smashed up when the gear was violently ripped out of it in a somewhat hard landing. In 30 minutes I was able to repair the 540 and make it stronger than it had ever been before... I can now do harrier landings on the gear without any fear of causing more damage and am having a blast flying it.
 
I'll start by sharing some information about the NFS. Here is the cover of the magazine, showing a picture of the plane.

The first thing I had to do was convert the plane to electric power. I chose a Cobra C-4120-12 Brushless Motor with a Kv of 850. It can use a 10x7 prop on 5S for 1100 watts or with a 12x6 on 4S for 838 watts. I decided on 4S with the option to go 5S if I thought I would need it.

The next thing to do was to figure out how to make the wings removable. I started with the idea of building them in separate pieces and I would play with different ideas until something worked.

I also had to keep in mind that I wanted a longer access hatch and on the top of the model, for battery access. This also meant elongating the nose a bit to allow for better battery positioning when adjusting the CG.

I gathered all the supplies (including a short kit I had purchased some time ago) and began my very first balsa build.
 

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I decided to use a magnetic board to do the assembly with and was very pleased with it. The magnets held the parts vertical for me while they dried. I was worried about making too many pinholes in the wood as I was putting things together and the magnetic board made it super easy to adjust everything prior to the glue and then held it firmly in place afterward.
 

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I worked on multiple parts at the same time so that the glue could dry while doing something else, but the first piece to be finished was the fuselage. Initially it just had the structural parts and the cutouts for the wings. Then I made the top hatch and got it ready for when the wings were done.

The hatch stays in place by setting it on the top and then sliding it to the rear and it locks under the supports. I added small magnets to the front just to keep it from moving. This worked very well.

You can tell my the price tag that the wood was purchased a few years ago...
 

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Next came the ailerons and wings.

The ailerons were real easy to make and it's funny because I thought they would be very difficult (not sure why). I used plenty of magnets to hold them steady and tacked all the parts in place with CA, then when they were dry I removed them from the board and went over every join with medium CA. When that was dry I gave it one last go with thin CA to be sure that everything was coated.

With the wings I pretty much followed the plans, except that I made some changes so that the servos were on the bottom. I still wasn't sure how I was going to attach them together, but I used hollow fiberglass push rods for the spars and left them sticking out of the inside of the wings so I could figure something out later.

I built servo boxes using spruce in such a way that I figured they would be strong enough to hold. Since I didn't have any experience I just used layers of thin wood rather than thick pieces. The thinking was that it should be as strong as plywood, but easier to cut and build. They sure feel sturdy enough.

The other thing I wanted to do was add structural strength to the whole model as I went. For this I used white Gorilla Glue and put small drops just about everywhere and let it expand and help bond things together. The inside of the plane looks a little funny but it certainly feels strong from almost every area it's handled by. On other planes I have used Gorilla Glue to repair and strengthen landing gear and motor mounts by brushing it along joints and such and it works really well.
 

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Finally I built the stab, elevator and rudder along with cosmetics like the wing tips. Once these were complete it was time to sand all the parts down. I used 80 grit to shape everything and then 600 grit to prepare the wood for Monocote. I used the 600 because it's what I had available and it worked out just fine.
 

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The next step was the covering. I was always planning to use yellow on the top and black on the bottom, just like the one inside the magazine and being from Boston, maybe a Bruins logo as well. Instead I looked in my closet to see what I actually had on hand and I changed my mind to using white and transparent blue.

I have never covered a plane before so I wasn't sure if Monocote or Ultracote was better. A friend told me that Ultracote was easier to work with and stretched better and that's what I had, so that was my choice. When I got to the bottom of the second wing, though, I ran out of transparent blue and had to head to my LHS for more. Unfortunately all they had was trans blue Monocote (and no other shops nearby had either), so I bought the Monocote and went home.

When close to the plane (and if you know it) you can tell that the wing bottoms are different colors, but in flight they are so close that no one noticed.

I found that Monocote was a lot harder to deal with. I like the color in Monocote better and I think the Monocote is a bit thicker, but I'll use Ultracote in the future... and try to plan a little better so I have enough of the right colors next time.

Here are some shots of my initial layout after the covering was done.
 

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SnowDog

Moderator
LOL I've been there, done that, too! What I want to use, versus what I have on hand ;) Still looks good!
 
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