My Ukey repair!

Actually it's turning into a humidity watch rather than a project. We got 3" on top of 6" of rain and the place is a slog pit again. Wayne went to get a new sump pump for his house. When they flood the drains and toilets have a full head and nowhere to go. Thank goodness I'm connected to the City... for now, at least. So wet air rules out my taking the Twister box of parts out there, and when I get cleared by the flight surgeon, I'll need something light and nimble to try flying. That would be the good ol' Ukester. Made from a pine stick and styrofoam wings. Nothing on that bag o' bones for damp air to bother.

I was, however, imagining a fix that won't work as planned. I didn't know there was no cutout in the fuselage for the airfoil. They are separate wings held by dowels that pass through the fuse. So what I'll do is shave the outboard fuselage of all remnants of the wing and drill new holes for new dowels. The inboard wing is still held in place by its original dowels, but for the sake of strength, I'm going to imbed two more, just as if the others aren't already there.


The old wing is a mess where I slathered it with epoxy at the contest... yeah, it did finally harden. So I will cut an inch or so off to square it up, and glue a new piece of styrofoam to the root to get it back to the proper length. I can sand it to shape and paint it with thin Titebond and cover it with something... silkspan, Monokote. etc.

Now for alignment. There are many ways to make sure the wings are symmetrical, but I have an idea. I happen to have a pair of 24" foam wing cores in their original packing, from which they were cut. I'm going to raise that packing off the table so I can suspend the plane while setting up and each wing will fit almost* perfectly in the airfoil shaped mould. It'll be just like a Bob Hunt Lost Foam Jig.

* "Almost" meaning the chord is the same but the airfoil is slightly thinner. But I think it will serve my purpose just fine.

Sorry I don't have pics, it's just too wet to go out there, but I'm so tickled with my repair idea I decided to write about it anyway. I promise I'll illustrate it tomorrow evening. I hope y'all understand what I'm describing. I think it's a great Idea.
Rusty