So at present, I have finished up gluing the doublers

Now that we have established this, the real question is, what do we do about it?
Well, lucky for you, I just made a mistake while building the center section for my beechcraft bonanza’s wing and now you can see what not to do. I was moving along and making good progress and was not taking my time and thought that I could do no wrong. My clue should have been that it was one o’clock in the morning, never a good time to build, let this be a lesson to all of you out there (you know who you are ).
My mistake is your gain. Now if you encounter a similar prediciment, you will now how to solve the problem.

Here is what happened….
I have placed my ribs on top of the basswood main spar on my plans and slid the plywood spar web over them. They were laid out perfectly to the plans, so I proceeded to the next steps, gluing on the leading edge doubler and the trailing edge center spar web. I took the time to clamp all the parts down, aligned everything to the plans and began gluing it all together, feeling confident in my handiwork. This is where things went oops.

Soon after finishing gluing everything in, I found that I had not sanded the slots for the dowel doublers. Unfortunately, I couldn’t simply unglue everything and start over. Instead I needed a plan to make it work.

Here is the solution…
As with any rc airplane building project, you will come across an obstacle that no instruction manual will help you with, and most likely no book on building rc planes either. There are just too many circumstances that come about when building a rc plane (or anything for that matter). The best solution is…experience. When you have built enough model airplanes, you develop an arsenal of tricks to get yourself out of big messes (and you will get into some big messes).

Anyway, watch the video below to see how I figured out a simple way to get back on track with building my beechcraft bonanza rc plane.

I am happy to say that when it came time to bend some 1/8th inch brass tubing for my model airplanes fuel tank breather line, I was pleasantly surprised with the results. It made any bend that I required. I could even place the tubing back in the tool and bend it a little more to accommodate my needs. There were no kinks or caved in walls in the brass fuel tubing. It was a clean and smooth bend. This bending tool is a great addition to my arsenal of rc airplane building accessories.

How Does The RC Airplane Bending Tool Work?

It uses two handles (lever arms) that are hinged to a mounting plate that holds a machined brass roller (this is not hardened, so make sure your tubing is annealed before using it). Your tubing rests in a tube itself that rests your brass tubing on top of the roller. Now you simply push the handles together until you achieve the correct bend for your rc building project.  The result, no more kinked tubes, caved in tubes or scrapped brass tubing. You can be a beginner rc hobbyist and still get it right the first time. Say goodbye to filling tubes with sand or attempting to bend it by hand (or one of my favorites, filling a tube with water and freezing it). Go forth fellow hobbyists and confidently bend tubing to your hearts content.

In the video below I review how the tool works and show some results of bent tubing that came out really perfect. I believe the best tools are the ones that take the simplest approach and the Dubro tube bending tool is no different. You cannot get much simpler than two levers and a pivot point around a brass roller. This simple design lends itself perfectly to making tube bending a breeze for any of your rc airplane projects requiring this product.

Ok, back to the details of the construction of the wing center section. I began with laying the plans on the building board (remember that for constucting the wing center section of my rc plane, I am using a magnetic building board).

The following video details how to protect and cover your plans, like most modelers, when I started, I did not cover them. The first time that I glued the plans to my model, was when I realized that it was not such a good idea when building rc planes. Soon after that I started covering them with wax paper (thanks dad). Now, I know that many of you still like to use good ol’ wax paper, but keep an open mind and check out the video.

Building a straight and true center section for a rc airplane is all about proper preparation. Usually when I remove the ribs from the die cut sheets, I take the time to sand each one (of course do not alter the airfoil shape). In the early days I used to just remove them from the die cut sheet and just start building a part for one of my model planes. Now I know that just because they were die cut parts, doesn’t mean they are free from rough edges and what not. So clean up those edges first, alright.

As you can see in the picture set, I have the ribs removed and I am ready to glue on the doublers for added strength to the wing ribs that will be holding the wing to the fuselage in my beechcraft bonanza model plane.

I started using magnets to build rc airplanes with back in 1997 and I couldn’t be happier with how well the models I have built have turned out. Building rc airplanes on a sheet metal surface takes no time to get used to, in fact I would say it is more of a pleasure to work on for the fact that it is a stable and solid work surface. 

NOTE:  If there is enough interest, I will put together a building materials list for constructing a magnetic building board.

Now about the video below. I have taken the time to go through showing you how each accessory works in conjunction with the magnets. I also cover how the magnets get their holding power and how the whole magnetic building system is extremely versatile and can work with any type of rc building project you may do.

Anyway…. this is about the magnetic building board system to build your rc airplanes with. Typically when you build with magnets, you are essentially creating your own custom jigs and fixtures to hold whatever model airplane you are currently building.

Instead of me writing to describe each aspect, watch the video below and I will talk about how it is set up and what makes up a whole magnetic building board system, from the sheet metal board to the individual magnets and their hardware.

One final note. You cannot get a magnetic building board system anymore from Great Planes or from any manufacturer for that matter, so the only alternative left is to make your own. If there is enough interest, I will put together the steps of what materials you need and how to bulid your own magnetic building board system.

Now that we have covered the parts of a magnetic building board system to build your rc planes, I want to sress an important step that cannot be overlooked. Leveling, any time you are ready to construct an rc airplane, you must level the building surface, whether it is a metal board, or a foam sheet, you must make sure your building surface is level.

The video below shows my steps to insure my magnetic building board is level.

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In the second video I cover the parts that go into assembling a fuel tank, and a helpful tip for the tubing that comes with the tank parts. Check it out to see this helpful tip when assembling fuel tanks for rc airplanes.

The final video covers the brass tubing tip in detail and how to prepare them for bending.

If you are just arriving here after receiving the email about the new look, here is where you can leave comments and suggestions about the blog. We really need your help to make it look great so please tell us what is on your mind.

Everyones comments are welcome, and remember, if you post a comment about our blog as to what we should add or change, or whether you like it, we will send you a free rc building tool!

So let’s spread the knowledge wealth and come up with a great list of building (and flying tips) that we can all use. Plus it wont hurt to remind ourselves of the more obvious ones that sometimes we take for granted. Like measure twice cut once (still haven’t found a good way to add wood back to a part I cut ).

This will be a continuous displayed post, let’s see how many tips we can put together. As we all build a good size list, I will put them together in another post for easy access.