I made quite a bit of progress on my Mig 29 V4M3e3 build the last couple days, primarily hinging and attaching all the control surfaces, elevons, ailerons and rudders and reinforcing in other areas with either carbon fibre rod/tube or fibreglass drywall tape and Foam Tac glue.
I know that some of the stuff doesn't show up too well in the pictures with white tape on white foam with clear glue... :/ The first picture is my aileron hinge setup. I like to use just 1" wide tape on the hinge of my ailerons to save a little product and weight and also to ensure that the tape would not every interfere with me attaching the KF airfoils, especially since I will be extending them back from stock a bit.
On the elevons I use the full 2" width of the fibreglass tape for maximum hold and once I get to that stage before attaching the back plate to the plane, I will also put some clear duct tape on the bevelled part of the hinge as backup. The elevons being the most used and abused control surface on the plane, I like to have a little extra insurance on the hinge.
I also like to use the full width of fibreglass tape on my rudder hinges as below, the rudders although they don't move as much as the elevons, do get some punishment from the prop wash over time. This will be on the inside of the prop wash as shown here, the bevelled part of the rudder hinge will be on the outside to try and keep the prop wash area as smooth and drag/turbulence free as possible.
In the next picture, you can see my carbon fibre reinforcement plan. As mentioned in the first post on this plane, I ran 3mm carbon tube along the leading edge and used 4mm carbon rod for the wing spar. The reinforcement in the elevons is also 3mm carbon tube. This setup has been working very well thus far on my stock V4 Mig, makes the wing nice and strong without too much of a weight gain.
When I built my first V4, I felt that there was just too much wing area not reinforced, I think mostly because the motor mount is about 1" further forward than on the V3 Mig, so it moves the spar forward, making it shorter, but also preventing it from reinforcing as much wing area.
The next couple pictures show where I used the drywall tape and Foam Tac to reinforce score lines on the intakes/nacelles and the fuselage. I just used 1" wide strips of drywall tape on the opposite sides of the score lines on my intakes. This has held up amazingly well on my stock V4 which I regularly fly at around 21 oz with a 2200 battery. On the inside of the fuselage, I used two strips of drywall tape and where it covered any slots, I cut that out with my knife after the glue had dried. I also put in my velcro in the bottom of the battery bay so that I didn't forget it until later in the build when it is more difficult to do...done that once or twice... :/
Hopefully today I will get to sand the leading and trailing edges of the elevons, rudders/vert stabs and the trailing edge of the wing before starting main assembly. I just find it easier to sand a nice taper on these areas when they are still flat pieces rather than trying to do it after the plane is all together.
I forgot to mention in the first post on this build that I will be using the identical power setup as I did on my stock V4, the Focal Price 2700 motor with 6x3 EMP prop, 6 servos, etc so that I can hopefully be at the same weight as the stock plane and be able to do a valid "fly off" to assess the differences between the stock V4 Mig and the Mig 29 V4M3e3.
I would like to wish all my good friends in the United States a very happy and safe 4th of July... :) Happy 238th birthday, America!
Cheers,
Scott
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