Ribcrackers Model Airplane Club

Thunderbolt November 2013 Club 2067 We’re on the web!

http:/www.ribcrackers.org

Club Meeting Monday, November 4, 7:00 pm

Nankin Hobbies 33350 W. 9 Mile, Farmington

F

Ray Field LAT: 42.5062 N LON: 83.5987 W

Editor’s Note

Don

Another successful and safe flying season is wind-

ing down, hopefully it was a fun-filled one for all

Ribcrackers in spite of those who lost aircraft. The

leaves are changing rapidly and the days are get-

ting shorter, but there’s always hope for a few

more good outings. So now thanks to all Rib-

crackers for keeping Ray Field clean and provid-

ing a safe flying season.

Student Night ended October 30, however some

informal instruction is still taking place. We had

new students getting signed off - the number is

not confirmed at this time.

Fall signals the voting season getting underway

with local and national elections, but it is also tra-

dition for us to nominate officers at the November

meeting for the election taking place at the De-

cember meeting. So who is stepping forward to

offer up their time and talents to guide our club

into the next year?

Are you planning or working on a building pro-

ject for this winter? Are you repairing or retrofit-

ting some of your current hanger, your editor

would like to record it hear. And that brings me

to my decision to step down as the editor for the

Thunderbolt. December will be my last issue to

compile. I will have put together the T-bolt for

five years, 59 issues – I missed the September is-

sue. I plan to spend a lot of time with my replace-

ment whoever that may be to keep the continua-

tion of your club’s newsletter.

So…….see you at the meeting – note the early

start time of 7:00 pm

Gerald Klose

October meeting started punctually at

7:00pm , Nankin Hobbies

Previous meeting minutes approved as sub-

mitted.

Treasurer’s report – Club is still solvent; Grass is still

being cut; Porta-Potti is still being emptied.

Secretary’s report – Welcome new Junior Member,

Preston Wallace

VP Report – What is the status of the effort to estab-

lish a field in Island Lake Park?

Project is still open but there hasn’t been any

movement in a while

Location is McCabe Rd and Silver Lake Rd

Is Walbridge Aldinger being sold? This rumor has

been around for years. Not likely until the market improves

Scott is going to contact members of other clubs

that have fields on state land to get some ideas that

might improve our chances in getting a field in Is-

land Lake

Don suggested that the original committee to find a new field reform and start moving forward again.

President’s Report – Time to re-iterate the issues re-

garding safety:

When you are going into the corn, let someone

know and take your cell phone with you.

You must have a spotter and the spotter really actu-

ally has to pay attention and not be preoccupied with running in an engine, programming the trans-

mitter, jawing, etc…

Thanks to everyone that showed up at the Field

Clean-up/Fun-Fly

Welcome back Don.

New/Old Business

Would like to start the presentations again during

the winter meetings. Anyone with a subject that they know something about and would be willing

to present or

o If you have a subject matter that you would

like to learn about. All suggestions wel-

come

In the next couple of meetings we need to consider

the 2014 budget and next year’s officers

Roger – The hosting service for our website may

go away in the next couple of months when Roger retires.

Alex – Re-iterated that we need to be more active in spotting

Don – Please submit material as soon and as copi-

ously as possible.

No Raffle or Model of the month

Meeting adjourned shortly before 8:00 (closing

time)

Meeting Minutes for October 7, 2013

Storing Fuel for Maximum Shelf Life

(The following is the fifth in a series of articles exploring all facets of model engine fuel. The writer is

Don Nix, founder and former owner of POWERMASTER FUEL.

Nitro-methane…..everybody knows it’s there, but few, it seems, really know much about it. Although

most seem to know - at least vaguely - that’s its primary purpose is to add power, we still get an occa-

sional call or letter asking, "Why do you use it in model fuel?" At best, there is much misinformation re-

garding this somewhat exotic ingredient. Let’s see what we can do to clear some of it up.

During the Q&A part of countless "Dog & Pony Shows" at hobby clubs all over the U.S., one of the fre-

quently asked questions is, "What’s the shelf life of fuel?" The answer if both simple and easy: Properly

stored, model engine fuel will last almost indefinitely. So….what constitutes "properly stored"? Let’s

take a look.

Contrary to many things you might have read or heard, just about the only thing that adversely affects

model fuel is the absorption of moisture from the air. Keep the air away from it, and your fuel will likely

be potent longer than you are! Methanol - the major ingredient in model fuel - is hygroscopic. This

means it’s virtually 100% soluble in water, and absorbs moisture from the air like a vacuum cleaner suck-

ing up dirt.

Most modelers have no idea how rapidly this can - and does - happen, and tend to be rather skeptical

about the idea. Let me paint a picture for you: Almost everyone has spilled a little fuel on the top of

their fuel can in their flight box. If so, you’ve no doubt noticed that the shallow film of raw fuel takes

Ribcracker John Jushkewich has forwarded the following article from a series that he discovered. As

space provides more of the series will be presented here if of interest. Let me know. For those that want

to explore the website…...http://www.geistware.com/rcmodeling/index.htm. The article “Beginners

Guide to R/C Flight is a 22 page article that is very good.for folks new to the hobby.

Editor’s Note:

on a cloudy, milky look. What you are seeing is the methanol sucking moisture right out of the air. Since

the quantity of fuel is thin with a lot of surface area, the absorption is rapid, the water won’t mix with

the oil and the fuel turns cloudy. Just remember how quickly this happens…..almost immediately….and it

might give you an idea of just how quickly your fuel can be ruined if you leave the cap off, allow a vent

tube to remain open, etc.

The wide surface area relative to the quantity of the fuel exposed is disproportionate, of course, to

leaving the cap off the fuel jug, but I think you get the idea. In a humid condition such as exists in

parts of the U.S., it doesn’t take very long at all to adversely affect your fuel. And it doesn’t take a

large opening….a cross-threaded cap, a small vent line, etc. is all that’s needed to do the damage.

The solution is simple, of course….just keep it tightly sealed. And yet, sometimes that’s not enough.

Most of us have seen small droplets condensed inside our fuel jugs after it’s become partially empty.

This is the result of condensation of moisture as the air trapped inside the jug cools. Until about a year

ago, there was little we could do about this, but there is now a method to take care of this problem.

Since it’s not the purpose of this column to commercially promote our own products, those interested

are invited to contact the writer at the e-mail address above, and we’ll be happy to tell you about the

product that will solve the problem.

For the reasons above, it’s our opinion that it is rarely a good idea to buy model fuel in 55 gallon drums.

Unless all the fuel is poured up the first time the drum is opened, a substantial volume of air is trapped

inside the drum each time it’s opened. Steel containers of any kind warm and cool much more readily and

rapidly than plastic, and condensation is much more evident in this type container. The result is that the

last portion of the drum of fuel is quite likely to be contaminated with moisture, sometimes to the point

of being unusable.

There is another downside to buying fuel in drums, especially if more than one person is using it. With

no control over the type container the fuel is dispensed into….perhaps not bearing sufficient or proper

warnings, etc., the liability is incredibly high if an accident of any sort should occur. Model clubs consid-

ering this type of fuel purchase for their members should be particularly aware of the potential liabil-

ity….which is huge!

While it’s true that the UV in sunlight (or in fluorescent lights, for that matter) will cause pure nitro

methane to deteriorate over time, it’s our experience that once the nitro is in solution and substantially

diluted, the deteriorative effect is relatively minor.

To test this, some years ago we put a gallon of 10% fuel out in direct sunlight (in sunny Southern Cali-

fornia) for a month. At the end of that time, we tested that fuel in an engine vs. fresh product and

could see no difference. While it certainly won’t hurt anything to store fuel away from direct sunlight,

etc., it’s our personal opinion that the adverse effect of sunlight on fuel under normal operating condi-

tions is too little to worry about.

A Sticky Subject

Now that winter is closing in, it’s

time to drag out all those dam-

aged planes that you’ve stashed

in the furnace room and get busy

repairing them for the 2014 flying

season. Since we fly off a some-

what uneven grass field, some of

the most commonly damaged

components are fiberglass wheel

pants and cowls. Wheel pants

don’t fare well on rough ground

due to taxiing vibration and less

than perfect landings. Typically,

they crack alongside where the

pant attaches to the aluminum or

carbon strut, and getting a good

solid repair is difficult. Fiber-

glass cowlings frequently crack or

break when a taildragger plane

flips over on its back during a too

-hot landing. Just gluing them

back together does not work,

they’ll just crack along the same

repair in short order. You need

to overlay new layers of glass

cloth to span the cracks and rein-

force the inner surface of the

part. The hardest part of getting

a solid repair of this type, though,

is getting the new layers of fiber-

glass to stick to the old surface.

The interior surfaces of cowls

and wheel pants are usually cov-

ered with a thin layer of gel coat,

which is a doped polyester resin

that not much of anything will

stick to very well. Conventional

epoxy resins won’t adhere to

polyester very long because they

don’t chemically bond to the sur-

face. When the wheel pant or

cowl surface flexes while taxiing

or flying, the epoxy-glass layers

will just delaminate from the poly-

ester and leave you right back

where you started. Even using

polyester resin will not usually

work very well unless you can do

a VERY good job of cleaning and

roughing up the original surface.

Fortunately, there is a good solu-

tion to this problem that you may

never have heard of, and it

comes in the form of methyl-

methacrylate resin epoxy, aka

MMA. MMA epoxies are spe-

cially formulated to adhere well to

plastics, fiberglass composites,

and other “slippery” materials.

The one I use is produced by

Loctite and is called “epoxy plas-

tic bonder” and you can get it

from Home Depot, Lowes, and

most other hardware stores. It

comes in the familiar plastic 2-

part syringe. For use with fiber-

glass cloth, you need to thin it

with isopropyl alcohol, just like

other epoxy resins. Just wipe

down the inside of your broken

wheel pant or cowl with alcohol,

brush a layer of the thinned MMA

on the surface, lay a piece of

glass cloth over it, then brush an-

other layer of MMA over that,

squeezing the resin down

through the cloth as you go. Re-

peat with more cloth layers if nec-

essary. The MMA will harden in

about 20 minutes and can be

sanded, cut, and drilled when

fully cured. When cured, the

resin is whitish-cream color and

is fuel-proof. If you’re using it on

the external surface of the wheel

pant or cowl, you can lay Bondo

over the top and sand to get a

smooth paintable surface. Bondo

sands and finishes much easier

than MMA.

I’ve gotten in the habit of reinforc-

ing some parts of my ARFs dur-

ing the initial building process

using MMA as well. For instance,

fiberglass cowls frequently have

wood bulkheads glued in place

for attachment to the firewall, and

these often aren’t well-bonded to

the fiberglass. A bead of un-

thinned MMA around the bulk-

head will fix it solidly in place,

whereas conventional epoxy

won’t hold. I usually lay an extra

layer of glass on the inside of fi-

berglass wheel pants during build

as well, since they ALWAYS

crack otherwise. It works great

on molded plastic parts as well.

The only down-side to this stuff is

that it has a very strong, unpleas-

ant odor, so use it in the garage

or with plenty of ventilation.

Club Positions

Vice President /

Field Marshall

Dennis Carpenter

248-881-3243 Dennis.carpenter@bcarp.com

Treasurer

Dennis Robbins

248-661-3562

drobbins421@yahoo.com

Thunderbolt Editor

Don Unsworth

248-348-0961

dunswrth@sbcglobal.net

Minute Recorder Gerald Klose

248-582-1803

Raffle Coordinator

Marshall Stern

248-661-8286

Safety Officer

Alex Alexopoulos

248-909-6869

Alexopoulos24@yahoo.com

Chief Instructor

Matt Jerue

248-348-5948

Ribcrackers 2013 Board of Directors

Librarian

Ken Hilton

248-877-1670

Secretary

Matt Jerue

248-348-5948

mdjerue@mi.rr.com

President

Scott Cruzen

248-275-3416 scruzen@me.com

UPCOMING LOCAL EVENTS

November 3—MidWest RC Swap Meet—Northville– See page 163 Nov. MA

November 4—Ribcrackers Club Meeting—Nankin Hobby—Nominations

December 2—Ribcrackers Club Meeting—Elections

CLUB RAFFLE

* 1—Foamie with motor, battery and receive ready.

Donated by Louie Marcon.

* 2— $25.00 Nankin Hobbies gift certificates.

* 1— $25.00 Nankin Hobbies gift certificate.

Raffle Coordinator Marshall Stern reports the following items available

for the November meeting raffle.