SCRC Meeting Notices
Monthly meeting are generally held the first Tuesday of each month with exceptions caused by holidays, etc. During the summer months, the meetings are held at the club's flying site. All other meetings are held at the Central Pa. Institute of Science & Technology, (formerly known as the Centre County VoTech School) in Pleasant Gap. The meetings start promptly at 7:00 p.m.

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Newsletter for the March 2004 Meeting

Past Meeting - Tuesday, March 2nd, 2004 at 7:00 PM

   At the Central Pa. Institute of Science & Technology

(formerly known as the Centre County Vo-Tech School)

Room B-127 - or another room nearby!

Check the sign in the Lobby for room confirmation!

See the meeting notice below for the January Meeting.

Minutes from January Meeting

‑The February Meeting‑

   Well, this is easy – We didn't have a meeting in February! Mother Nature dumped a ton of snow on central PA, so the meeting was cancelled. We opted for cancellation rather than postponement since there was no pressing business to conduct. 

  Now for the hard part – I have to fill this newsletter with something other than meeting info!

First off, congratulations to SCRC member Troy Dermota and his wife Christine on becoming the proud parents of a new baby girl last month!  It's their first.

 Now, here are a few tips from the AMA national newsletter.

Is that iron hot enough?
A good way to see if your covering iron is hot enough, or worse yet, too hot, is to place the iron on a stand (I use a 6-inch scrap 2 x 4) so the foot is facing up. The top of the iron should rest on the 2 x 4. Get a scrap of the material you are using to cover the airplane. Using a Coverite thermometer, heat the iron to the recommended temperature. Then, rest the scrap on the shoe. If it shrivels into a ball right away, the iron is too hot. Readjust the temperature and try again. If nothing happens, then the iron is too cold. Keep adjusting until the scrap barely shrivels. I wait until it shrivels rather slowly and use that temperature as my hot setting. For my low setting, I watch for the piece to shrivel in a few seconds. Since I use MonoKote almost exclusively, I just mark on the iron where the two settings that work best for me are located. You might have to experiment to see what works best for you.
from Circus Flyer
Camarillo Flying Circus
Ron Boyer, editor
Camarillo CA   --  Webmaster's note:  My son Albert lives here!

Fuel cans
If you have a favorite or otherwise standard fuel can in your flight box, then you routinely transfer fuel from one can to another. While you are doing this transfer, you have the perfect opportunity to make sure you are using only the cleanest of fuels. Put a coffee filter in the funnel you use for the transfer for super-fine fuel filtration.

Epoxying hinges
from Mark Kallio
An easy way to epoxy hinges in control surfaces and to be sure to get the glue to fill the hinge slot is to use a plastic drinking straw as a disposable “hypodermic.” Flatten the end of the straw between your fingers and test fit it into the hinge slot so you will get the hang of inserting it. Then mix your epoxy, scoop some up in the end of the flattened straw, insert it into the slot, and “milk” the epoxy into the slot. You can wipe the outside of the hinge slots off before inserting the hinges. This assures that each slot is filled with epoxy. I like to take a small drill and drill though the control surface to pin the hinges with a toothpick. The toothpick should be cut off flush and a small piece of covering placed over the pin. These are only noticeable upon close inspection, and the benefit to the control surface is substantial.

Instrument panels
from Mark Kallio
An easy and cheap way to obtain an instrument panel for that sport model is to look through a full-size airplane magazine for an advertisement showing instruments. I found one I liked and used my scanner to scan the image into the computer, and then pasted it into my word processor, scaling it to different sizes. This could also be done using a copy machine that will reduce. If using the computer, any size can be easily scaled, and I printed out several different sizes to have on hand. The ones I did were all in black and white, but if you have access to a color scanner and color printer, some really nice instrument panels can be created this way. You also could add color to black and white copied instruments using markers or colored pencils so they look more realistic.

Mylar covering
Have you ever had trouble peeling the backing from Mylar covering material? I certainly have, especially with the lower temperature coverings. The easiest way to prevent a nervous breakdown when you are trying to peel this stuff is to use two pieces of masking tape. At a corner of the Mylar, stick a piece of masking tape on the front and back of the covering, with about half hanging over the edge so that the pieces of tape stick together past the edge of the covering material. Then peel the two pieces of tape apart, and presto! The backing peels right off. Happy covering!
from Tangled Lines
Tampa Bay Line Flyers
Phil Bayly, editor
Tampa Bay FL

Cutting corners
from Roy McGuckin
For a better fitting joint when using triangle stock, sand a little off the 90° corner to provide clearance for any glue fillet that may exist.

Captured on tape
from John Clark
Before cutting steel control cable, wrap it tightly with masking tape to prevent the strands from unraveling as you cut. It makes it easier to solder into a threaded push rod end too. Remember to wear safety goggles.
from Circus Flyer
Camarillo Flying Circus
Ron Boyer, editor
Camarillo CA  --  Webmaster's note:  My son Albert lives here!

Push rods
Did you ever go through all the trouble to make up your control surface push rods only to find at installation that they were a quarter inch too short? Try this easy way to get the lengths just right. Tie a string to the control horn on the control surface. Drop the free end of the string through the fuselage. With the control surface in the neutral position, tie the other end of the string to the servo arm. Cut off the excess string at both tie points. Now, cut the string at the two tie points, and what you end up with is a piece of string that is the exact length of the push rod you will need to fabricate.

Paper circles
Use a paper punch to cut out little circles of gummed paper. Stick these pieces to the backside of firewall blind nuts. Once you do this, you can fuel proof the tank compartment with resin without fouling the threads of the blind nuts.
from the newsletter of
SAM 26, Central Coast Chapter
Bob Angel, editor
Santa Maria CA

Sandbag weights
Fill plastic Ziploc bags of various sizes approximately three-quarters full of fine sand and seal each well. Use these to hold down large parts of your airplane, such as wings, while building. The sand conforms to the shape of the parts. The bags also work well when gluing sheeting.
from the newsletter of
The Orbiting Eagles
via WIRCS Touch & Go
Mike Mosbrooker, editor
Oak Harbor WA

That's all for now.

 Sam Stitzer  814‑364‑9530

samstitz@yahoo.com

For Access to past SCRC Newsletters --  click on the month for the desired year.