DonStegall

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I'm putting a number of new planes together for the 2016 Club 40 NATS to be held in Muncie, Indiana on July 16. I've got to do a lot of trim covering and prepping planes. I'm doing a yellow LA Racer 40 in the color scheme of a Q40 Brazilian Shark that I'm getting the molds for. My wife liked this scheme and I'm going to shoot some pictures as I progress on the covering

DonStegall

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Now that I know I'm going to have time off from work to attend the 2016 Club 40 NATS, I'm having to kick it into high gear to get ready. I've been flying more on my field, but I haven't been flying Club 40 planes. I looked around the shop and decided to bring 2 planes out of retirement. Both were victims of leaking tanks and both had fuel soaked landing gear blocks.

This first one is one of the first LA Racer 40 planes that came into the country. It had an OS 40 LA in it. The engine is locked up, but I have a fresh OS 46 LA that is broken in. Even though I will not be flying in Bronze, I'm going to get this plane repaired as quickly as possible so I can get some laps in before the NATS.

The original trim on the wing and stab had been replaced with my starburst design.

The landing gear block and the wing hold down had to be taken out. I'm going to put one of the newer aluminum landing gears on this one.

DonStegall

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This was the Dale Jr plane I did for my son in 2008-2009. It came in 1st and 2nd in races in Charlotte in 2009 at the hands of other pilots. The engine on this one was really good, but the plane was prepped well and has gap seal on the hinge lines. It was always a good flying plane, and hopefully I can get it ready by next weekend also.

While the fuselage is where I have a lot of work needs to be done, but the wing needed care also. Some of the covering was a little ragged like the numbers. I put clear ToughLon over the numbers and fixed various covering issues.

I use dual aileron servos in all of my Club 40 planes. I use differential to straighten out the rolls.

The checkerboard on the bottom had partially come off. So I replaced it and I put a 6" wide piece of clear covering around the leading edge and over the first couple of inches of the checkerboard. It should keep it from coming loose.

The landing gear block was fuel soaked. I took out the part that needs to be replaced and I'm putting in new wood for an LA Racer 40 aluminum landing gear.

DonStegall

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I got up this morning at 4 am and got started with my day. After showering and shaving, I worked on my Q40 Shark some. Then I got to work getting the right wing panel of my LA Racer 40 that I'm doing in a "inspired" by the Shark color scheme. Here are the right panel of each.

DonStegall

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When I'm in frantic model building mode, my video taping area often gets used for building. I can usually rearrange in a short amount of time. But I don't know how many videos will get taped between now and the http://Club40NATS.com event. I do have a video already shot and in the editing stage for making Quickie wing templates. It is an airfoil called the "Shadow" that is somewhat of a Ninja Q500 clone.

DonStegall

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StegallHobbies.com will soon offer a wide range of epoxy fillers as I use all different kinds of stuff, and I want people to be able to buy it in consumer friendly sizes and prices.

This is last night's after work project. A landing gear block for a Sky Raider Mach II. I decided to assemble it before starting to glue things sin place. I put in blind nuts for a LA Racer 40 landing gear. I made the bottom and sides out of 1/4" aircraft plywood, and two 3/8" pieces to add strength. It was glued togethwer using epoxy and contton flock.

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With the landing gear pre-mounted, I should not have any problem with 6-32 blind nuts. I glued them in with medium CA

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This morning's before work project was to get the landing gear block in place. I used epoxy with micro-fibers which really thicken up the epoxy and add strength.

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I clamped it in place because the tape would not hold precisely in place. I will let it cure at least untl tomorrow morning before I start working on filling any voids with micro-balloons and cab-o-sil.

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DonStegall

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This morning's shop task was to check out the landing gear repair. I sanded what extra glue there was and put the landing gear on. I tried to break it out and there were no pops and cracks. So this repair should last through my landings with a collapsed gear at the most.

I mixed up a batch of epoxy with as many quartz micro-balloons as I could since the filler is not going to be load bearing and I want it to sand easily. I added a small spoon of cab-o-sil to make it thixotropic and piled it on so I don't have to do it a second time.

DonStegall

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The filler was hard enough to sand this morning, so today's pre-work task was to try to finish up the landing gear repair.

Good to see it up on it's legs again with all over the covering repaired.