Gliders > Slope Soaring

DG1000 - The Story So Far

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stephen.shannon:
Hi All,

Just a progress report on the DG1000. If you recall I bought a DG1000 back in May from a chap but unforutnately the model was in very very bad shape. However rather than hang my head on this one I sought help from a number of people on the site and through a good friend of mine...... google.....

So the images I took of the glider parts when I first received it were as follows:

The T-Tail in some bad shape



The tail itself in bad shape also, poorly filled and cracked front and back



Below the Cockpit cracked right across the fuse, left to right



The nose crack on the right side and just epoxied back together.



Wing roots damaged and split



Wing tips on both side, cracked, fixings twisted and hanging off.





Wing Servos, cables damaged, plastic covers unusable, control arms and joints rusted....



The moral of the story don't buy what you havent seen.... daft I know and very obvious but haste was the enemy here.... however the next installment.....

stephen.shannon:
The first thing was to figure out how to repair fibreglass.... I found a method on line that didn't involve large patches of fibreglass, the steps were as follows.

Mark up lines on the fuse for cutting  :shock:  :shock:



Cut slots into the fuse with a craft saw or dremmel



this was the interesting bit using carbon thread, (Carbon Tow) bought on ebay  :wink: , cut lengths and lay them in the cut slots as shown.



Using CA glue, glue each carbon thread in place. The glue used was from my car racing days and was a little two runny but did the job



When the CA is dry, using a sanding block, sand down the fuse where the carbon was glued, it comes away really easily with the sand paper; you'll see the threads on the ground in this photo.



Now the messy bit, using Isopon car body filler, smear the area with the filler, follow the instructions on the tub closely, the first batch i made up was far to fast drying so a second attempt worked fine.

I got this in halfords.



The area covered with isopon



This is messy but go with it.

the next thing once that had gone off was to sand this down... I used a small mouse type sander on this to get an even and smooth finish, needless to say go easy with a power sander near a model plane, a split second lapse of concentration and you can really cause some damage  :cry:  :cry:

Any way sanded down and ready for painting....



These steps were taken on a number of other parts of the fuse and all went well.....



sincere thanks to all who helped in getting this far....

stephen.shannon:
With all the sanding done I sprayed the body with enamel paint and it came up very nicely.  :lol: yes I could do it better a second time round but as a first attempt at this... it's alright now.....



So with all of this done now it was then onto covering the wings and moving parts. The original DG, I think, must have been an ARTF becasue there was a plastic clear film over a painted surface.... I could be totally wrong but it just appeared that way. (This was my first time doing this kind of work)

So thanks to a few conversations with "Little Keith" (Mr. Happy Days) and google I went forth and got red and white solarfilm to cover the plane. The wings were stripped down and sanded to remove all the paint and the covering began......  :lol:



It took some getting used to but you tube was a great help.... thanks Happy Days  :clap:



The rudder, ailerons, wing tips in red  8)

So its ready for assembley now......



 more to follow in the coming weeks

Fred:
Impressive work Stephen!  :clap:
Look like new!  :clap:  :clap:

Can't wait to see it finished with the decals applied  :D

andrew wallace:
:clap:  :clap:  :clap:  :clap:  :clap:  :clap:  :clap:  :clap:  :clap:  :clap:  stephen that was a job well done  :D

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