And It Begins! My son's first build

Thanks ken! I am already trying to get it in his head that he will crash it a few times and that's ok. I have some balsa coming from sig. I have a laser cutter at work and will build a couple simple trainers as well. I figure that way we can keep flying. Never have used ca glue. We had lots of 10 minute epoxy on hand though. I also have a bunch of parts on the way from cox. I picked up a few 049 parts engines from eBay and will be getting a few of them back in shape. The biggest hurdle for me is going to be patient during the learning and relearning process.

It's reassuring to know that you can build. This is a good thing and in your mind you know you will be fixing. That being said, the design of the Carl Goldberg Wizard was a good one. A 1/8" ply firewall with ears was glued to the model with cheek blocks backing it up. The ears retained a plastic firewall mount for the Bee engines. The engine screwed to the plastic and the plastic was rubber banded directly to the ears of the firewall. I just may have one of these but it would take a little searching. This would prevent fuselage breakage. Ken

Ken Cook wrote:            It's reassuring to know that you can build. This is a good thing and in your mind you know you will be fixing. That being said, the design of the Carl Goldberg Wizard was a good one. A 1/8" ply firewall with ears was glued to the model with cheek blocks backing it up. The ears retained a plastic firewall mount for the Bee engines. The engine screwed to the plastic and the plastic was rubber banded directly to the ears of the firewall. I just may have one of these but it would take a little searching. This would prevent fuselage breakage. Ken

thanks for the suggestion Ken
i am not sure yet what i'm going to build. we never built any with rubber band shock mounted engines but that sounds like a good idea. we developed our own version of the ringmaster trainer i believe. it had a wider/thicker wing and stabilizer and fabricated up a motor mount out of aluminum that ran back 4-5". flew nice and slow i think i remember seeing the plans for Goldberg's wizard when doing some searching the last couple weeks. we got quite a few people flying back then. hopefully i can get out enough this year to do the same

Roger
I build and fly with my boys too, It doesn't get much better than that.
Duke.

rogermharris wrote:

Ken Cook wrote:            It's reassuring to know that you can build. This is a good thing and in your mind you know you will be fixing. That being said, the design of the Carl Goldberg Wizard was a good one. A 1/8" ply firewall with ears was glued to the model with cheek blocks backing it up. The ears retained a plastic firewall mount for the Bee engines. The engine screwed to the plastic and the plastic was rubber banded directly to the ears of the firewall. I just may have one of these but it would take a little searching. This would prevent fuselage breakage. Ken

thanks for the suggestion Ken  
i am not sure yet what i'm going to build. we never built any with rubber band shock mounted engines but that sounds like a good idea. we developed our own version of the ringmaster trainer i believe. it had a wider/thicker wing and stabilizer and fabricated up a motor mount out of aluminum that ran back 4-5". flew nice and slow i think i remember seeing the plans for Goldberg's wizard when doing some searching the last couple weeks.  we got quite a few people flying back then. hopefully i can get out enough this year to do the same

I refer to my first post.
https://www.coxengineforum.com/t3375-scans-of-my-lil-wizard-rubber-band-engine-mount?highlight=wizard

Can be made from 3 pieces of 1/8 inch ply. One is the smaller size, the other two are identical. One on the airplane the other glued to the smaller piece for the engine.

Phil

Hi Roger, It's great to see that you're getting your boy started in the hobby! He has a look of determination.. yet calmness in his eyes; holding that Mustang kit and engine in his hands!

If I could make one suggestion.. it would be to get him a small comfortable handle.. and set it up with the line-spacing equal to the model's bellcrank line-spacing (1:1 ratio).. and use the outer-most hole on the elevator horn for the pushrod. You probably already know this.. but it will make the model less sensitive initially.. and easier for him to control. Old-school "Dacron" thread for the lines is fine.. but a lot of us are using the braided-type fishing lines.. and tying-off using the 5-turn "Uni-Knot" at the terminations. 10-15# test should be more than adequate for a 1/2A trainer, if you decide to buy some. "Spider-Wire" EZ Braid is a popular brand.

roddie wrote:Hi Roger, It's great to see that you're getting your boy started in the hobby! He has a look of determination.. yet calmness in his eyes; holding that Mustang kit and engine in his hands!

If I could make one suggestion.. it would be to get him a small comfortable handle.. and set it up with the line-spacing equal to the model's bellcrank line-spacing (1:1 ratio).. and use the outer-most hole on the elevator horn for the pushrod. You probably already know this.. but it will make the model less sensitive initially.. and easier for him to control. Old-school "Dacron" thread for the lines is fine.. but a lot of us are using the braided-type fishing lines.. and tying-off using the 5-turn "Uni-Knot" at the terminations. 10-15# test should be more than adequate for a 1/2A trainer, if you decide to buy some. "Spider-Wire" EZ Braid is a popular brand.

thanks roddie for the setup suggestions! after being out of it for so long i probably would have forgot about setting up the handle. i still have my 1/2A "old school" handles and dacron thread. i will have to check out the fishing line.

we got much of it glued up tonight. the rudder was installed after this pic. and tomorrow after church will be some sanding.
thanks to all for the encouragement and suggestions

Very Cool! Tell the little man he did a great job! He looks happier holding the kit verses the box. You guys are going to have so much fun.

duke.johnson wrote:Very Cool! Tell the little man he did a great job! He looks happier holding the kit verses the box. You guys are going to have so much fun.

yep! he's happy so far. looking forward to the smell of glow fuel...

Nice Job on that plane. Hope you both have a great time with it.reminds me of my son and I when he was young.Now he likes girls more then me or planes ...ha ha ...go figure.Have fun. Joe

We have such a fun time traveling to contests and fun flies. My boys are 15 and 17 now and it started a few year back with control line in the back field. Now we've added RC ALES gliders, slope gliders, and free flight gliders. My daughter says we have a problem, I say she doesn't have a bunch of planes and that's a problem. The guys we fly with always said my boys would find girls and cars, then give up planes. So far I still have them with me. I hope this turns into a great adventure for you.

Welcome to CEF, Roger. Glad you found us.
Rusty

Good to see your son and you are getting it together with model flying , Has he seen or herd a engine run ?/// if not may bee a good idea to set up a test stand and do some runs with him to get use to it ,, Eric

Hearing protection is also a good idea. A set of ear muffs are inexpensive and make for a much more enjoyable experience, especially at the test stand. While flying I still like hearing protection, but it is not an issue if I am in the center, just for starting. When I am "pit" for everybody I definitely wear some hearing protection.

Phil

Thanks all. I will posts some more pics as we finish up the build. Eric, no he's not heard one run yet. I have parts due in from cox and fuel from sig. I don't like the waiting game for supplies. We used to have 3-4 stores we went too for whatever we needed. Anyway I think a test stand is in order. I have about 6 engines to piece together plus a 4 to clean up and run.

I hadn't thought about it ear protection but I have some already on hand. Thanks for that!

what an exciting and adventurous day!

i took today off from work to spend with my son since he just started spring brake.

we went to Jackson hobby shop in Jackson, nj (about 40 minutes away) and was excited to see it's a real live hobby shop! full of all the things i marveled at as a kid. lots of plane kits, building supplies along with rc boats, copters, cars, trains ect!! my boy was amazed by all the was hanging from the ceiling. they even had what i would say was an old 1/4 scale p-51 mustang hanging up!!

anyway...

we were able to pick up a few things needed to finish the plane and hopefully the rain is gone tomorrow and we are able to get to painting.

also when i got home i found that the cox parts finally arrived and we got our first engine rebuilt and actually had run of the first flip!

started with the one in the center. cleaned it up and installed all new gaskets, Reid vale and needle valve.

Nice, and an old timey rubber spinner too.

RknRusty wrote:Nice, and an old timey rubber spinner too.

For sure! It should look good on the mustang. It came with plywood to build an engine cowel but will forgo it till it's crashed a few times. Hope to have most of the paint done tomorrow on this one. I'm holding to laser cut another trainer out next week. With any luck we will be flying next weekend.

Hi Roger, So glad that you're having good experiences! I believe I've been to that hobby shop in Jackson. It was about 15+ years ago. I was dating a girl who was originally from Brigantine, NJ. Her sister lived in Jackson, and we drove down from MA to visit her one weekend. That HS was refreshing indeed! We bought a Kyosho sailboat   that day, IIRC.

I'm glad you posted the question about installing the screen at the air-intake on the Cox Bee engine. I run mine with/without the screen. There's an engine-throttle available that works very well with the Bee back-plates.. but you have to remove the screen to use it. Cox International lists the throttle as a "new item". It's worth the $10 if you ever want to build a little "Bee powered" RC plane.

I saw the laser cutting you did on some plywood engine plate/mounts. COOL STUFF! Will you import/convert a plan drawing into a file (DXF?) for cutting the parts for a trainer? I ran a CNC router in a sign shop for years. I can't imagine how great it would be to have access to a laser-cutter!    

roddie wrote:Hi Roger, So glad that you're having good experiences! I believe I've been to that hobby shop in Jackson. It was about 15+ years ago. I was dating a girl who was originally from Brigantine, NJ. Her sister lived in Jackson, and we drove down from MA to visit her one weekend. That HS was refreshing indeed! We bought a Kyosho sailboat   that day, IIRC.

Thanks Roddie! Lots of fun and bonding time with my son.   takes a lot to pull him away from his video games...
It was my first trip out there and told the owner when i walked in that i was here to shop my son what a real hobby shop looked like.
small world... i was told that Saturdays there are people from all over in the store.

roddie wrote:I'm glad you posted the question about installing the screen at the air-intake on the Cox Bee engine. I run mine with/without the screen. There's an engine-throttle available that works very well with the Bee back-plates.. but you have to remove the screen to use it. Cox International lists the throttle as a "new item". It's worth the $10 if you ever want to build a little "Bee powered" RC plane.  

i prefer to be on the safe side and run the screen especially on a trainer.  i'm sure a good part of it's life will be spent with it's nose planted in the dirt LOL! i have seen those carbs. pretty cool!  maybe a three wire control line plane in my future... don't think i'm interested in r/c.

roddie wrote:I saw the laser cutting you did on some plywood engine plate/mounts. COOL STUFF! Will you import/convert a plan drawing into a file (DXF?) for cutting the parts for a trainer? I ran a CNC router in a sign shop for years. I can't imagine how great it would be to have access to a laser-cutter!    

very cool stuff to play with.  i work in corel draw and basically trace patterns. i can import dxf and dwg files and do what ever needs to be done. i have my own version of a trainer layed out and will get one cut out early next week. i have had the laser at work for nearly a year and it still fascinates me to watch it work.  it's a 60 wat 12" x 24" bed.  i wanted a larger machine but, this one became available and it does what it needed to do. it will cut up to 3/8" in plastic or wood.  i also have a shopbot cnc router with a 3hp
spindle.

hoping for a 3d printer next

oh.. and i have a 30" roland vinyl printer/cutter

I wish I had access to toys like that. I just acquired a scroll saw, which is quite nice to say the least.

doing things by hand
Phil

pkrankow wrote:I wish I had access to toys like that.  I just acquired a scroll saw, which is quite nice to say the least.

doing things by hand
Phil

you can't beat a good scroll saw. certainly one of my favorite tools

roddie wrote:

I'm glad you posted the question about installing the screen at the air-intake on the Cox Bee engine. I run mine with/without the screen. There's an engine-throttle available that works very well with the Bee back-plates.. but you have to remove the screen to use it. Cox International lists the throttle as a "new item". It's worth the $10 if you ever want to build a little "Bee powered" RC plane.

Maybe ill try a three line control line 049. One of the engines that came in a lot off eBay looks to be a sure start with a broken backplate.

Back in the day I built and flew a fourth some inch wingspan stunt plane with throttle control.

On another note. In the process of getting a finish on my son's trainer. Had some issues with an old spray can of epoxy fuel proof paint. Even with much shaking and soaking the can in warm water, it went on heavy did not flow out well and did not stick well. I masked off some areas with blue painters tape and it pulled quite a bit of the paint off. Guess ill have to do some sanding and start over. I may have my home built trainer built before this one at this rate. Live and learn.