Beep (oz15265)

About this Plan

Beep. Radio control sport model. Wingsoan 44-1/2 in, for 25 -32 engine. Uses foam construction.

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Quote: "A simple sports model from Dereck Woodward to test the qualities of foamboard as a construction material for modellers.

I just 'discovered' a 'new material! Yes - one that promises to revolutionize modelling, change the way we think and perhaps even walk the dog in its spare time. Naturally - like most of its ilk - it's been around for ages and is repeatedly dug up by folk like me who feel the need to be a little different. This epic new material is artist's foamboard, 'FB' from here on, and unlike many 'new' materials it's probably only going to require you to change one modelling habit - you could end up spending less!

Background: My designs are all much the same, it's only the outside shape that changes! For example, a 'D' tube wing is light, torsionally rigid - and I can build them fast using traditional balsa and ply. So why mess about with funny stuff? I just used my vast stocks of beloved balsa, ply and spruce.

Then I moved from rural England - thirty odd miles from shops - to just outside Washington DC, and shops I'd only only dreamt of. Art shops are hard for me to pass by - and I failed to pass a big one. In both, I'm confronted by racks of artist's foamboard - white foam covered with white paper, much cheaper than 'Ecuador Gold'. Well, Yorkshiremen can't pass by a bargain, so I lay out a few dollars, take it home and try to figure out what to do with the stuff.

You can sand an edge with care - trimming the fuselage top down to match the sides is a case in point. Catch the flat, shiny outer paper coat with sandpaper and you've just taken off the gloss gloss and left a fuzzy area of paper.

Drilling, for the wing band dowels for example, is pretty easy just treat it like drilling through wood and it leaves a clean hole, but use a sharp drill bit to avoid tearing the FB surface. Another good way to drill a larger hole is to use length of sharpened tube - that old tranny aerial you bent and haven't had the heart to toss out is good for tubing.

The basics of foamboard: It comes in 1/8, 1/4 and 1/2 inch thick sheets, plain white is much cheaper than the coloured stuff. FB handles like medium grade balsa - without grain. A sharpening stone is handy, as paper dulls knife blades fast. A metal straight edge and a large, self-healing cutting board are useful too.

Creasing FB by over bending causes weakening so be careful. As the structure goes together the chances of of bending the FB to creasing point are lowered.Trying to bend dry FB is not on - it will take the curve from wing seat to fuselage stern post, for example, but that's about it...

Turns out one of my club mates had experience with FB, so I picked his brains first. Roy Day is very much a 'thinking' modeller and he had worked out to FB to be around 7 pounds per per cubic foot. I'm more a 'doing' modeller, so I set to playing with the stuff, and discovered that (A) You can cut ribs from it, (B) You can cut anything flat from it and (C) It won't bend far before it creases and loses its strength at the crease point.

At this point, cautious engineers would carry out tons of tests, build skiploads of samples, accumulate disks of data. None of those are any fun on a fine weekend, so I built a model aircraft instead!

Convention starts at the front - there's no substitute for a reliable engine. I placed my 05 25 FP on the board, put a four ounce tank and RC gear behind it and went from there... "

Beep from R/C Model World, April 1998.

Supplementary file notes

Article pages, thanks to RFJ.

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