Old Carl Goldberg 1/2A Handle Rebuild

Thanks for the compliments. To me this is fun stuff and a good way to pass time at this time of year, and keeps me out of the ol lady's hair.... I honestly like little projects like this. It is either fix up stuff like this or find me a good old well used and abused engine to take apart, fix, and clean up. The dirtier and or stuck, the more fun it is!

I used some foam to build up the missing area in the rear upper.

Foam?

Great project. It's more fun to fix up old and damaged stuff that to buy new. I started out using that handle. Lost mine too. Now that you have another yours will turn up.

Bob

Yes, foam... Lol. As the handle is hollow, I shoved a piece and a half (cut to approximate dimensions) of Fan Fold Foam (used for scratchbuilding foamies) in the handle then shaped it to the rough shape. This was just so the I did not need an ounce of epoxy to fill the void. I am kicking myself as immediately after putting on the epoxy I thought I should have taken pictures. Epoxy does not hurt the foam. Then after curing overnight, just some filing and sanding.

And quite honestly, Bob, I always enjoyed things like this, and after seeing you do what you do to things, it drives me more.

If you look closely, you can kind of see the foam in the handle. It is the lighter colored area under the epoxy.

Nice job, a true modeler fix it rather than buy new! Glad you enjoy reviving older useful items. I know somewhere around here ive posted a picture of my control stick, which is a stick with two nails.

NEW222 wrote:If you look closely, you can kind of see the foam in the handle. It is the lighter colored area under the epoxy.

Thanks, I'm going to look into that. Another tool in the tool box.

Bob

I've never flown that Goldberg handle.. but I do have one that I picked-up just prior to my flying-hiatus of (xx) years.. We could call it a bucket-list handle.



The Cox handles in the above photo are the type I used. I want to try the Sig, CG and Guillows handles. I only need to source a few more sets of line-connectors. I have several line-type options on-hand. The large-red "EZ-Just" I remember as being the standard handle for the larger C/L airplanes of the 1950's and onward.

Wow. Thats a nice assortment you got there. I do like your Goldberg Handle packaging, and it says it's old. When I got one years ago before misplacing it, it was on a cardboard bach with blisterpack style if memory serves me well. Also, if I may roddie, could I please bother you take a picture of the red marbled looking one immediately in front of the EZ Just handle, prefferebly with a ruler beside (with thr ruler, I could throw it in my scaling program and get the correct size). I like making these and I think that the design there would be a neat little one. Thanks again for sharing.

As well, if memory serves me well, I believe that the little black one in the back is from a Testors plane. I had a black sport type one years ago and the handle pictured reminded me of it.

Having flown control line for many many years, I can offer my opinion on handles. Roddie provides some examples which one in particular catches my eye. This would be the marbled version your inquiring about. That handle has bias built it into it and a lot of it. This is not a recommended handle to use. However, some approve of a bias handle as they feel it suits their hand geometry. When flying control line, people tend to fly two ways, one with their elbow bent ( Very bad) and with their arm extended. I'm guilty of flying with my elbow bent at times and concentrate hard to lose this habit. When flying 1/2A, this isn't a general problem as your not relying on your tendons to maintain the plane due to the light pull. You fly in a much more relaxed position when your arm is extended with a lot less stress to your arm. A biased handle suits the elbow bent flyer over the straight arm flyer. This doesn't mean that every bent elbow flyer should switch to a biased handle. What does happen though is that a bias handle tends to lend less response due to less handle throw in one direction. This is my opinion of course, I've witnessed this due to many hyper extending their wrist when they feel they're getting in trouble. I believe the theory behind this is that when you hold your hand out in front of you thumb up and  arm extended, look at your hand. Generally, one's hand  is angled to the degree of that handle.

         A non biased handle is preferred due to the lines attaching square to the handle, it also equals the tension on the handle which is more relaxing as the forces on the handle are also more equal. Most that fly with a bias handle have the lines adjusted to equalize the forces on the lines which is somewhat self defeating of the purpose.

         Again, depending on how one wants to fly,  a 1/2A handle that provides enough handle area to get your entire hand into is too large. This is going to have one over controlling the plane badly because slight wrist movements are going to equate to large handle movements. When one looks at the black Testors handle in the background with the two holes, this handle was way ahead of it's time and more than likely was used very little due to it's size and what feels uncomfortable due to using two fingers. The reality of it though is that it offers subtle control and allows one to finesse the plane rather than fly like Woodstock from Snoopy.

        While on the subject the EZ-Just 5" is probably more responsible for wrecking airplanes than any handle ever produced. The line spacing is far too wide and offers too much throw to the controls stalling the plane and over controlling it. The EZ-Just Hot Rock is superior to it just being slightly under 4". If for instance I had a plane that had extremely slow controls and is balanced correctly but won't turn, I would opt to try the large EZ-Just. Many of the older kits never provided hardware such as bellcranks, many builders used unknowing what they had on hand such as 2" bellcranks on .35 size models like Ringmasters. If one was to couple this plane to a 5" handle, the elevator throw goes to nearly 60 deg and it does this in only a few degrees of wrist movement. This makes a exceptionally poor flying plane and one that's nearly uncontrollable in level flight.

        1/2A flying is very similar to combat flying due to the light wing loading, the faster speed and flightiness. If the controls and handles are setup properly, no matter how fast the plane is flying one can easily manage very clean and controllable maneuvering. I can only speculate that most flyers never really entertained the thought of using the innermost holes of most handles. I know I almost never did and don't recall if I did until later on and many crashes as a result of just not knowing. When kit manufacturers started offering Sig nylon 1/2A bellcranks, these were larger than Perfect 1/2A offerings and this tamed the flightiness down on 1/2A planes. Many used and still use both styles of handles so try both.

Thanks Ken,

I love my Hot Rocks, but my go to handle is a wooden one custom made by Marvin Denny. It’s identical to the Hot Rock but doesn’t break. I like it because it feels good, flew my first full pattern with it, but most of all it’s a little piece of Marvin.


The Goldberg handle is ok, I find it uncomfortable because it’s too small for my hand, if your hand is smaller than mine it should work well. The white Sig handle pictured above works well enough too, I would remove the plastic washer and install a through bolt with a steel washer as the plastic washer will eventually crack.

I am an arm fully extended guy, feels natural to me and gives me really good control. I do fly speed planes with elbow bent though as I don’t care about control input so much and the extra 18” or so allows a little quicker lap time.

Ron, I no longer use any Hot Rock handles either.When George Cleveland was offering 1/2A combat handles, I tried one and have been using them ever since.My current 1/2A uses a similar inside footprint to the Sig handle but the outside is smaller and narrower spacing.   I use Brodak's wooden version ( Remco) myself for larger models. At this point, any of the plastic handles of the 60's and 70's are too brittle. This is probably a poor analogy but if you can't walk on a handle accidentally without breaking it, you shouldn't be using it. I had a Hot Rock wreck a plane on me when the cable sawed through the interior ferrule of the handle. One day it just let loose while flying and I retired them. Brodak offers new cables for their handles which I have replaced more than once due to overuse. I have switched to hardpoint handle over the past few years for flying larger models but when I go to just play the old cabled handle is a first grab out of my box.  My statement on bent elbow flying was more directed to the pilot vs the plane. When one does this they have a tendency to also hold the handle with a extremely hard and firm grip which is also not so good for the tendons.  Making yourself relax is very important as it also instills confidence.

Talk about coincidence, I was just talking about Marvin the other evening. I miss him and enjoyed helping and flying with him. He was a neat guy. I was flying Foxberg racing at Brodak's when he made his last appearance after just leaving the hospital. He walked up to Shawn and I and shook our hands . Marvin had sent his plane to be flown by the Oklahoma guys, they did take a 1st place but I wasn't far behind and Marvin was impressed by our teamwork and effort. Unfortunately, the event went to LA .25's and I never flew it again at Brodak's.

always interesting speak on handles. I always learn something new.

Chancey, Here's photos of the Guillows #125 handle that you asked about.

(the screw-posts are my modification)




Regarding the little black two-finger hole handle.. it was included with my Cox "Cosmic Wind" RTF model. A Testors part?.. probably; seeing that Cox would acquire the Cosmic Wind model-molds from Testors at some point. The paperwork with my Cox-version states 1986.




That's a 1.5" line-spacing. The bellcrank in my Cox Cosmic Wind has a 2.25" spacing. I only flew the airplane a few times.. and only over grass. I used a sheet/roll of something.. but whatever it was had to be long enough for a ROG. 3/4" diameter wheels with wheel-pants made for a few spectacular grass-landings. I was lucky it didn't get damaged. It's had a wing-warp issue.. that's still an issue..

taken today with EXModel Engines Cox .049 "Black Lynx" installed.

Great. Thank you very much for the pictures. They are a great help! Also, nice model.

Well, thanks to roddie, I got meself a little start to my 2 new handles. Tomorrow evening I should have some time to drill the holes and make the cutouts. From there, I will give them a good sanding and doping to seal them up. I do not know where I will go from there on the finishing. I would like to keep it all wood, but somebody didn't think of that when he drew them out with a Sharpie marker letting it seep good into the wood.... Only time will tell what the actual finish will be.

Well, thanks to roddie, I now have 2 more complete 1/2a handles in my fleet. Finished them yesterday evening and was just waiting for paint to dry. So, here they are. Both were cut out, given 2 coats of thinned dope to seal, 2 medium coats of primer with a rattlecan coat of red. Was thinking of something else for color, but I thought red stood out when laying around especially on the ground. Anyways, they are nothing too fanct, but feel they will perform well. So thanks again for the pictures with dimensions so I was able to make them. I may just cut out a couple more as they were easy to do, and I will use a different cutting method for the handgrip on the larger of the two. It was pretty messy using a small handsaw. Anyways, here they are for you to see.

Good work

Nice looking handles Chancy , have you thought of clear coating some decals on them ..

getback wrote:Nice looking handles Chancy , have you thought of clear coating some decals on them ..

Thanks for the compliments. And no, I had not thought of clear coating decals on them. That sounds like it would be a nice small touch. As well, easily doable. If I had something decent to put on them and clearcoat over.

Templates for CL handles. Roddie's photos used as reference. Download A4 size:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ll8y888qc2vk4va/clh_A4.png/file

This is such an interesting thread, I'm just disappointed that I can't find my old handles so I can join in. One as I recall is a clear handle from TD Bandit when he was making his Bipes and distributing them about the members here.

Eric. Do you mind if I copy that thimble drome patch and make a decal out of it? I would like to put it under the wing of my JW Firebaby.

Bob

Thanks for this. I will keep a copy for my records. If I have time tomorrow, I will post other 1/2a handles I have for others to copy. Great work!