Revamping my Lil Roughneck

I have been flying this Lil Roughneck, powered by my home made Killa' Bee (aka TeeDeeReedy) for many years. Pictured here when freshly built more than 4 years ago:




The plane is a ball to fly. Designed originally for 020 engines, the 049 powerplant makes wonders.:

The many hours of stressed use and landings in deep uncut grass have left their marks on the plane. The monocote was punched on several places allowing castor to find its way to the balsa, and I also noticed the stabilizer detached from the fuselage, and both the rudder and elevator, with stock thickness of 1,5mm only, were cracked beyond repair.

The guts of the bird remained relatively intact, with only one of the Hitec 35 HD nano servos (I bought it in a hobby shop near Tampa when visiting the US couple years ago!) had its mounting ears broken.

So I thought it is high time I did something about it...an easy-lazy way would have been to put it into retirement and buy and build another one  . Searching ebay gave no results, the last time I saw a Lil Roughneck factory kit there was long ago and it went well over 100 bucks. Plus shipping another 50 bucks, or so and customs duties on top with value added tax would have put the price tag above 200 USD...

My earlier source, Steve from Selecthobbies does not carry the plane anymore, but told me earlier he may design and sell a reproduction...

Back to my plane, I decided to give revamping a try...I am not particularly good at revamping used machinery or anything at all... lack of manual skills of some folks here, wider selection of tools and a dedicated workshop, hence my reluctance and hesitation upfront. I typically build on the porch, and when gusts come, return to the kitchen to the utmost delight of my wife..

Things worked out better than I thought:

Removing the battered, transparent white  monocote film from the fuselage left me with a  balsa surface rather slimy particularly near the engine mount area. Castor makes its way wherever it wants, there is no way I can stop it!!!

Luckily I had applied some fuel proofing varnish when building it some years ago so the penetration of castor into balsa was only superficial. Discoloration of the wood by castor, however, could not be removed despite my trials with various agents including the nail polish remover of my wife, and the color of castor-soaked balsa became even uglier.

So I cut thin cheek sheeting from scrap balsa, and after applying some polyurethane varnish on its inner side, CA-d it to the fuselage front, cleaned previously from castor by nail polish remover... Also added another thin balsa cover layer to the bent turtle-back top of the fuselage behind the engine, the most castor-impacted area.



I sanded the cheek external doublers to well below 1mm thickness, these doublers serve mainly for cosmetic purpose, and I did not want to add too much drag to the fuselage contour.

Next thing was to replace the broken control surfaces: I cut new vertical stabilizer, rudder, and elevator from 1,5mm thick balsa and doubled each to have 3mm thick parts, as opposed to the stock 2mm. Thoroughly sanded and  treated all with polyuretnhane varnish.

I doubled the cracked horizontal stabilizer by gluing a thin balsa doubler over its full surface, now I have a stronger stab of 3mm thickness instead of the stock 2mm - hinges will more easily penetrate into and stick in thicker material, and will hold hopefully better.

All in all not too much weight and drag added, I hope the plane retains its original flying characteristics.

The broken servo ears were doctored by CA gluing some glass reinforced textile hinges cut and bent to size. Practicality prevails over aesthetics. Looks stronger than the factory ears, we will see how they work out...these nano servos became almost unobtainium here and once found, I pay near 30 USD for each... so it is worth repairing them if otherwise functionally OK, which it was...

After spraying the whole fuselage and its components with polyurethane, I started wondering if I should do the revamp on the wing too.

Punched with small micro-holes in  the field by stubs of dry grass, there is one major hole about 1cm diameter that I needed to cover up temporarily on the upper side of this boxed, balsa sheeted wing..not nice but at least worked so far, now I have to do something about it too.



I am not yet sure how I will patch it to keep the patch even with the surrounding balsa cover..I will probably sink a balsa block through the hole down the whole thickness of the wing, glue it to the inside of the bottom sheeting, then sand off the protruding part on the top...not yet sure.

If interested, stay tuned, I will carry this thread up till the maiden flight..I will be away from home the entire next week so it won't happen before early September.