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Repair or Scrap? Advice please


BigT

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So having had a few sessions with the Hawk and having managed, finally, to find a very small thermal giving me a 1.30 sec flight, much more satisfying than the usual 30 seconds.  

So today I thought I would take advantage of the really nice October weather, sunny , 4 mph wind. However, disaster struck before I could even get the battery plugged in.  On getting the model out of the vehicle I found that the boom has snapped clean in half midway between the tail and the trailing edge of the wing. Possibly there may have been a manufacturing fault in the carbon fiber wrap, possibly it got knocked in transit but I cant see how, definitely not crashed or handled roughly by me or anyone around me.

So the question  is this, is it worth trying to repair it and if so how?  And if it is repaired will the flight performance be so horrible it not worth bothering.

 

I could not see a spare fuselage on the Hyperflight or any other web site. 

Thanks in advance

 

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Before all the guys who know their stuff pipe in , the answer is yes to repairing it, it's not very hard to do and you won't notice the difference in performance.  You could have it flying by next weekend. Please post pics. 

Tony

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All you need to know....

 

It's in German but the only translation to need is "Geschenksband" the is the ribbon you use to wrap present, which curls up if you scrap it along some scissors.

I've used this method a couple of times, only adds about 1g

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Big T. Post a pic measure it and I'll send you some cloth/tow to do it. If you can measure the dia as I might have some tube that will fit inside.

Cheers, Tony

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Had the above up working with English sub titles - put the German sub titles on (the CC box to the right ) then put the English translation on (the settings button to the next right of the CC box - select "Subtitles/CC  German (auto generated) " then pick "Auto-translate" from the drop down menu that appears  and select English  ) - makes it a bit easier to follow ... 

Tried to save in a link with the options working but it didn't work ... 

Taggarc

 

 

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Thanks for all the support and advice. I’ll post some pictures later today.  Now, trying to get this English translation to work on the you tube app is a struggle. 

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Thanks for all the support and advice. I’ll post some pictures later today. I have some fine glass cloth and some carbon tow, also I have some epoxy wing finishing resin so I guess that would work as well if it’s thinned down with meths or similar?  I like the ribbon tape wrap idea In the video for squeegeeing out the excess. Nothing ventured etc

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19 hours ago, Tony said:

Big T. Post a pic measure it and I'll send you some cloth/tow to do it. If you can measure the dia as I might have some tube that will fit inside.

Cheers, Tony

I have so 20 gram m2 wing skinning fiberglass cloth in stock, I presume that would do the job? I also  have some carbon fiber tow so I could use that instead with some really thin epoxy resin?  I also have some odd bits of carbon tube I can practice on. 

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'tis a mere scratch! One of the easier DLG repairs, just get the boom straight, side to side, up and down - I don't like doing wings.
A piece of carbon cloth cut to size, small overlap underneath boom. Wetted with skinning resin, excess resin gently soaked up with paper towels (from garage forecourt), wound with electrical tape, sticky side up. Check its still straight! I've not looked at the videos, they probably do it better than the above.
xxliteboom.thumb.png.0181f38030eb4d565d20c77400e91787.png

bollaux.jpg

How - should have typed SAMmed, Tony H explains on page 3 of that thread. So many Tonys 🙂

 

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Big T. Use the carbon tow, it might not look as pretty as carbon cloth when done but it won't matter. Don't thin epoxy it'll turn into a mess. Glass cloth won't give you the strength but you can use it just to get the two halves together so it gives you something to wrap the tow around. Tony's above is the easy way to do it.

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OK, I notice that Hypeflight do a DLG repair kit so I have ordered  one of those as its nice to have a few options. Thanks again.

 

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The boom Repair has been very successful, thanks to all the advice. I went with the German video in the end, splinted the tube to get in straight, cyno the join, one wrap of light weight glass cloth followed by a spiral wrap of carbon tape, held on by gift wrap ribbon. I then sanded with fine wet and dry. Now I just need to apply a thin coat of thinned epoxy to get a gloss finish. The only snag was the rudder wire got stuck but that is now fixed. Should have removed it before starting.  I will need a small amount t of lead in the nose to compensate. 

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Well that could have gone better!  Not so strong as I thought it would be. 1 wrap of 20 oz fiberglass and one wind of carbon tow, wrapped up in gift tape until dry then sanded gently. Went out today in a genuine flat calm and experienced probably the best flights to date then on the 4 th flight it slipped out of my hand as I caught it and went nose in from about 4 feet and the tail boom cracked off again in exactly the same spot plus the leading edge of the port wing has de laminated and dented (no big deal as I can cover that bit with sticky tape.)  Disappointing. Perhaps the Light Weight Hawk was the wrong model for a newbie DLG.  I will have another go at repairing it using thicker materials and maybe a strip of solid carbon fiber on the top to act as a splint. Peed Off!!!!

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