Post by rcdude07 on Mar 21, 2014 8:24:00 GMT -4
Sorry for the long post guys, but I'm playing catch up on this forum from the last month.
During the week of February 20th, 2014, this happened to me:
I've been following GWS US on Facebook (they apparently have 2 pages, and update them both). Most everyone has heard of GWS and used some form of gear from them, like their slow flyer props. So far in 2014 they have done 2 monthly giveaways, free airframe. Entry to the contests are easy: like them on Facebook will give you one contest entry. The second contest is to post pictures of your GWS airplanes. If you post a picture and like them, you're entered into both contests. 1 entry per contest per person.
I've noticed the owner of these pages is very active with liking and commenting on my personal posts (pictures, status updates, etc...)
I was checking my emails after dinner on Monday, and noticed I had a message out of the blue from GWS. No I did not win, but was a personal letter to me for an awesome opportunity, no not sponsorship, but still cool. I don't know why I was chosen, I had not done anything except like pics of their airplanes and contest posts. I waited until Tuesday and messaged them asking for a little time to talk the opportunity over with my family and consider the budget needs and impact to my annual hobby budget and gave them links to some of the reviews I've written for this forum. Their response was "no rush, take your time and we like your reviews and inclusion of tips to make them fly better." So after much investigating an digging around the web Tuesday and Wednesday I sent them a message this morning saying, I'm in.
Got your attention yet? Any ideas of the opportunity? Did you guess, employment? No, not employment. So if it's not employment or sponsorship, what is it?
Their message to me on Monday night:
Dear XXXXXXXX,
GWS USA is looking for volunteers to build and take photo of GWS air plane kits.We will be happy to ship you with free kits at no cost (if you are in the United States).
If you are interested at this event, here are the list of air planes you will be able to choose from:
[message edited for surprises on this forum later]
Please pick at least three airplanes by your priority. We will assign one or more air planes to you based on your preference.
Minimal requirements:
1. Each kit has to be built within 2 months after receiving.
2. You need to have a camera capable of take 2000 px x 1333 px or better size pictures.
3. We will need minimal of 10 pictures per airplane.
4. Video will be a plus.
Granted in my email to them this morning with my list of 3 aircraft, I also explained my time for the hobby will dwindle as we get closer to July due to the expected arrival of our second child. For those of you on here that know me enough, it's going to be another boy.
I will tell you guys, the list of three I chose will all be firsts for me: first foamy (regardless of what they send) and power setups (multi engine or EDF).
So we'll see what their response is and what they decided to ship me.
2-26-2014:
Initial unboxing pics:
-a box in a box
-no damage to either box
-GWS included a GWS hat (looks like it has a neck flap to prevent sunburn)
-Also included are 4x GWS 9gram servos
-2 BL2208 motors with props included (not sure if counter rotating or not)
-Green color model (it'll be getting D-Day stripes and the CS I posted earlier
Need to go through and inventory it all tonight, and order what I need tomorrow (initial gut is 2x 25A ESC (with this motor that is recommended), cable to plug two ESCes into one battery (headsuphobby.com), servo extensions for ailerons, additional 3S 30C batteries.
2-27-2014
Took everything out last night and took inventory of the contents. It's all there per the manual. Also test fit the left and right wings and booms to the main wing. The horizontal stab did not easily slide into the slots in the booms easily, so I'll have to do some tweaking there. The foam feels like stryofoam cooler foam. The horizontal stab is not clearly labeled top and bottom, so I'll have to do a little investigation. There are indentations for panel lines on one side (which makes me think top), so I'll need to look online for pics before I get there.
3-3-2014
Saturday was build day #1 for me. Steps were straight forward for a while: glue the wing halves to the main wings, glue the wing spars in place, cut the ailerons out, sand the ailerons LE. I learned here that even blue painter's tape will pull of some of the green finish from the foam no matter how light the tape was applied. Both spars were a little longer than the precut channel so I had to lengthen the channels some. It may be due to this reason the rear spar did not seat flat/flush like it should have and is sticking out a tiny bit. The date on the kit is showing again as all spars are fiberglass instead of carbon fiber. Then came a little beef with the instructions. After cutting the ailerons out, they have you marking the hinge locations on the ailerons, then sanding. Well, this foam (EPO I think) sands faster than soft balsa, so so after shaping the aileron LE, the hing marks were gone, so I had to remark. Also, it's very tough to mark the center of the ailerons since it's preshaped and then having to cut off the aileron from the wing. So I had to eyeball it. Sure, if you have 4 hands you could rig something up to measure and mark the center line. Also, there is no mention of cleaning up the wing TE from cutting the ailerons off. So I took it upon myself to smooth the cuts on the wing. After doing this the manual calls for permanently attaching hinges and control horn, since I plan to paint the belly, I skipped this and moved on to gluing the nuts in place in under the super charger and what apparently will be boom pod alignment pieces. Again, I had a beef with the manual in not having clear pictures as to how these plastic pieces should face. Fortunately a quick Google search showed the boom nut, and going forward in the manual showed another plastic piece going on the boom that coincides with this piece (of course I found all this information before gluing in place). Since I didn't have my paints I couldn't paint the clear nose cone, instead I drilled the air holes in the nose and fuse, per instructions. 3mm holes are drilled in all 5 of the gun hole slots on the plastic piece and a 10mm hole is drilled in the foam. The steps in the manual are clearly for the older style 1 ESC to NiMH/NiCd and all electronics in the nose. After completing this step, I came to a halt. Without my ESCes here, I can't check how they'll fit in the booms. As boom assembly is next.
I have learned this foam sands quicker than balsa, and dents easier than balsa. My right aileron TE is already looking a little war battered.
My headsuprc order arrived Saturday, so that was exciting (2 lipos, the battery y-cable, and a servo y-cable).
Hopefully today my ESCes from Hobby Express will show up. Tonight I'll mess with some paints my buddy loaned me. I think the green will be super close, if not I may just go with it and do a green type of camo pattern or a light coat on all the green foam.
3-5-2014
Put another coat of black on the super chargers last night. Brushing it on the inside of the plastic to protect the paint. I also spent some time testing the motor mount, motor, wiring, and ESC placements. My solution is going to use the supplied motor wire extensions, use the bullet connectors here covered with heat shrink, then solder the ESC to the wire extension, and mount the motor wires such as the bullet connectors are accessible in the cowls in case I get a counter rotating prop and want to add the scale/coolness factor. The ESCes will be mounted under the wing either recessed in a little or just double sided taped on around the side of the fuse.
3-6-2014
On another note, the site to get $30.00+shipping airframes is live:
SEFF2014.gwsus.com
3-9-2014
First coat of gray went on Friday night. Due to the foam soaking it up and the dark green on the foam, I was not impressed. Saturday morning the second coat of gray went on. Now we're talking! Smooth and can tell it's gray. Saturday afternoon I did the green, 1 coat on the foam and 2 on the plastic parts. I also soldered the motor extension wires to the ESCes. Thought I followed the same way of connecting, but I didn't. So one of the motors will for sure spin backwards initially.
Today I hope to program the ESCes, clean up the green on the canopy, and get back to gluing foam together.
3-10-2014
Big update today!!!
Friday night: first coat of light gray was brushed on everything. I used a 2" brush. The foam absorbed a lot of the paint and the green on the foam had me regretting this decision.
Saturday morning: Second coat of gray was brushed on. Now it looks good and I'm not regretting the choice.
Saturday afternoon: first, and only coat of green was brushed on everything. After it dried the CS was looking niiiiice and scale-ish. I painted on the inside of the plastic pieces so the paint doesn't scratch/wear off easily. Also bound the AR400 to the DX8. Also soldered the motor wire extensions to the ESCes. Thought I followed the same pattern on each setup, but alas I found I did not. So at least 1 motor will spin backwards initially.
Sunday morning: programmed the ESCes individually.
Sunday afternoon: painted the white triangle squadron symbol on the vertical fins (scale markings and a great orientation marking), glued the nose cone on, glued in the fiberglass supports and motor mounts in the booms, modified the motor wire extension channel in the booms, glued the booms together, glued the hinges into the wing.
(holes in hinges to help with glue seeping through and bonding)
3-11-2014
I have to admit I had my doubts about the GWS glue and the hinges. But after 24 hours, the hinges were in the wing and weren't budging when I tried to wiggle them. The manual says to glue half into the wing and wait for glue to dry. No indications of how long this would take, so I did the wiggle/light tug test every couple of hours and in the morning to see how the glue was setting.
Last night the ailerons got glued onto the hinges, the boom alignment plates were glued in, glued in some plastic cups that are for holding the screws in that attach the booms to the wing, and a 4th and final coat of flat white applied to the triangles. When gluing the ailerons to the hinges I made sure to use a knife to wipe away the excess glue as it squeezed out of the slots as well as work the ailerons in both directions to ensure they weren't getting glued to the wings.
3-12-2014
Last night's progress included: plastic firewalls being glued on, the plastic horizontal stab support/install pieces being glued on, and cutting a V into the foam on the boom where it sits in the wing (I assume this is to help with wire routing later). And I don't know how anyone could build this kit with 1 tube of glue. I've not used it abundantly, just adequately/just enough/just right, and I had to crack open the second tube last night.
3-17-2014
Friday night the super charger cooling pods were cut out and glued on.
Saturday afternoon the motor mounts were screwed down, cowls were mounted, elevator cut from the horizontal stab. First I got the cowls seated how I liked the look, made alignment marks on the bottom of the nacelle and the cowl. Then put blue tape on the cowls, marked the location of the mounting plates on the foam, aligned the cowls, measured an 8mm x 8mm square for the mounting block locations, crossed the corners to find the center and drilled. The manual calls for a 1mm hole, I don't have a metric set yet, so I used my smallest drill bit which proved to be too big for the supplied 1.5mm screws. Since I'm not installing the landing gear, I was able to use the 2mm screws instead which bit and are holding tight.
Sunday afternoon the hinges were glued into the horizontal stab, touch up paint applied to the areas needing it, installed props and spinners, spun up both motors simultaneously for the first time (boy did they sound sweet for the brief seconds at 50% throttle in order not to wake the little one from his nap) to fix motor spinning directions. Also started cutting out the super charger covers for installation later.
Left to do: hinge elevator, install elevator control horns, attach horizontal stab to vertical fins, attach booms to wings, glue canopy parts together, run ESC wires, install 3 servos, setup said servos and throws. Hoping this week will mark completion, won't be able to maiden this week due to working our church's Royal Ambassador Derby on Saturday.
3-18-2014
Last night: hinged the elevators, cut the super charger covers down to size, cut canopy base down to size, scraped the green paint off the canopy and super charger covers, masked the canopy and traced the canopy frame.
Painting the insides seemed like a good idea to help protect the paint. However, so much of those areas on the super charger covers and canopy are used for gluing surfaces. So just a minor setback. Tonight I hope to cut the mask and get at least one coat of green on the canopy as well as mount the elevator control horns.
3-19-2014
Second coat on the canopy this morning. Unmasked and cleaned up this afternoon. A little better than previously. But more importantly, stab mounted to the booms and booms mounted to the wings. Had to enlarge the rear of the holes in the fins for the stab to fit. I may need to take them back of in order to run aileron servo wires. I also will be putting loc-tite on these screws and bolts.
3-20-2014
Drumroll please......... plane is together for all practical purposes. I calculate about 6 more items to glue on/together, also need to secure the electronics, paint the super charger covers after I glue them on, and of course balance the plane.
3-21-2014
Yesterday I sanded the wing saddle areas to be a flatter, better fit between the booms and wings. Also glued the canopy base to canopy, then after a few hours cut the hole in the back that will allow for the elevator pushrods to exit the canopy.
During the week of February 20th, 2014, this happened to me:
I've been following GWS US on Facebook (they apparently have 2 pages, and update them both). Most everyone has heard of GWS and used some form of gear from them, like their slow flyer props. So far in 2014 they have done 2 monthly giveaways, free airframe. Entry to the contests are easy: like them on Facebook will give you one contest entry. The second contest is to post pictures of your GWS airplanes. If you post a picture and like them, you're entered into both contests. 1 entry per contest per person.
I've noticed the owner of these pages is very active with liking and commenting on my personal posts (pictures, status updates, etc...)
I was checking my emails after dinner on Monday, and noticed I had a message out of the blue from GWS. No I did not win, but was a personal letter to me for an awesome opportunity, no not sponsorship, but still cool. I don't know why I was chosen, I had not done anything except like pics of their airplanes and contest posts. I waited until Tuesday and messaged them asking for a little time to talk the opportunity over with my family and consider the budget needs and impact to my annual hobby budget and gave them links to some of the reviews I've written for this forum. Their response was "no rush, take your time and we like your reviews and inclusion of tips to make them fly better." So after much investigating an digging around the web Tuesday and Wednesday I sent them a message this morning saying, I'm in.
Got your attention yet? Any ideas of the opportunity? Did you guess, employment? No, not employment. So if it's not employment or sponsorship, what is it?
Their message to me on Monday night:
Dear XXXXXXXX,
GWS USA is looking for volunteers to build and take photo of GWS air plane kits.We will be happy to ship you with free kits at no cost (if you are in the United States).
If you are interested at this event, here are the list of air planes you will be able to choose from:
[message edited for surprises on this forum later]
Please pick at least three airplanes by your priority. We will assign one or more air planes to you based on your preference.
Minimal requirements:
1. Each kit has to be built within 2 months after receiving.
2. You need to have a camera capable of take 2000 px x 1333 px or better size pictures.
3. We will need minimal of 10 pictures per airplane.
4. Video will be a plus.
Granted in my email to them this morning with my list of 3 aircraft, I also explained my time for the hobby will dwindle as we get closer to July due to the expected arrival of our second child. For those of you on here that know me enough, it's going to be another boy.
I will tell you guys, the list of three I chose will all be firsts for me: first foamy (regardless of what they send) and power setups (multi engine or EDF).
So we'll see what their response is and what they decided to ship me.
2-26-2014:
Initial unboxing pics:
-a box in a box
-no damage to either box
-GWS included a GWS hat (looks like it has a neck flap to prevent sunburn)
-Also included are 4x GWS 9gram servos
-2 BL2208 motors with props included (not sure if counter rotating or not)
-Green color model (it'll be getting D-Day stripes and the CS I posted earlier
Need to go through and inventory it all tonight, and order what I need tomorrow (initial gut is 2x 25A ESC (with this motor that is recommended), cable to plug two ESCes into one battery (headsuphobby.com), servo extensions for ailerons, additional 3S 30C batteries.
2-27-2014
Took everything out last night and took inventory of the contents. It's all there per the manual. Also test fit the left and right wings and booms to the main wing. The horizontal stab did not easily slide into the slots in the booms easily, so I'll have to do some tweaking there. The foam feels like stryofoam cooler foam. The horizontal stab is not clearly labeled top and bottom, so I'll have to do a little investigation. There are indentations for panel lines on one side (which makes me think top), so I'll need to look online for pics before I get there.
3-3-2014
Saturday was build day #1 for me. Steps were straight forward for a while: glue the wing halves to the main wings, glue the wing spars in place, cut the ailerons out, sand the ailerons LE. I learned here that even blue painter's tape will pull of some of the green finish from the foam no matter how light the tape was applied. Both spars were a little longer than the precut channel so I had to lengthen the channels some. It may be due to this reason the rear spar did not seat flat/flush like it should have and is sticking out a tiny bit. The date on the kit is showing again as all spars are fiberglass instead of carbon fiber. Then came a little beef with the instructions. After cutting the ailerons out, they have you marking the hinge locations on the ailerons, then sanding. Well, this foam (EPO I think) sands faster than soft balsa, so so after shaping the aileron LE, the hing marks were gone, so I had to remark. Also, it's very tough to mark the center of the ailerons since it's preshaped and then having to cut off the aileron from the wing. So I had to eyeball it. Sure, if you have 4 hands you could rig something up to measure and mark the center line. Also, there is no mention of cleaning up the wing TE from cutting the ailerons off. So I took it upon myself to smooth the cuts on the wing. After doing this the manual calls for permanently attaching hinges and control horn, since I plan to paint the belly, I skipped this and moved on to gluing the nuts in place in under the super charger and what apparently will be boom pod alignment pieces. Again, I had a beef with the manual in not having clear pictures as to how these plastic pieces should face. Fortunately a quick Google search showed the boom nut, and going forward in the manual showed another plastic piece going on the boom that coincides with this piece (of course I found all this information before gluing in place). Since I didn't have my paints I couldn't paint the clear nose cone, instead I drilled the air holes in the nose and fuse, per instructions. 3mm holes are drilled in all 5 of the gun hole slots on the plastic piece and a 10mm hole is drilled in the foam. The steps in the manual are clearly for the older style 1 ESC to NiMH/NiCd and all electronics in the nose. After completing this step, I came to a halt. Without my ESCes here, I can't check how they'll fit in the booms. As boom assembly is next.
I have learned this foam sands quicker than balsa, and dents easier than balsa. My right aileron TE is already looking a little war battered.
My headsuprc order arrived Saturday, so that was exciting (2 lipos, the battery y-cable, and a servo y-cable).
Hopefully today my ESCes from Hobby Express will show up. Tonight I'll mess with some paints my buddy loaned me. I think the green will be super close, if not I may just go with it and do a green type of camo pattern or a light coat on all the green foam.
3-5-2014
Put another coat of black on the super chargers last night. Brushing it on the inside of the plastic to protect the paint. I also spent some time testing the motor mount, motor, wiring, and ESC placements. My solution is going to use the supplied motor wire extensions, use the bullet connectors here covered with heat shrink, then solder the ESC to the wire extension, and mount the motor wires such as the bullet connectors are accessible in the cowls in case I get a counter rotating prop and want to add the scale/coolness factor. The ESCes will be mounted under the wing either recessed in a little or just double sided taped on around the side of the fuse.
3-6-2014
On another note, the site to get $30.00+shipping airframes is live:
SEFF2014.gwsus.com
3-9-2014
First coat of gray went on Friday night. Due to the foam soaking it up and the dark green on the foam, I was not impressed. Saturday morning the second coat of gray went on. Now we're talking! Smooth and can tell it's gray. Saturday afternoon I did the green, 1 coat on the foam and 2 on the plastic parts. I also soldered the motor extension wires to the ESCes. Thought I followed the same way of connecting, but I didn't. So one of the motors will for sure spin backwards initially.
Today I hope to program the ESCes, clean up the green on the canopy, and get back to gluing foam together.
3-10-2014
Big update today!!!
Friday night: first coat of light gray was brushed on everything. I used a 2" brush. The foam absorbed a lot of the paint and the green on the foam had me regretting this decision.
Saturday morning: Second coat of gray was brushed on. Now it looks good and I'm not regretting the choice.
Saturday afternoon: first, and only coat of green was brushed on everything. After it dried the CS was looking niiiiice and scale-ish. I painted on the inside of the plastic pieces so the paint doesn't scratch/wear off easily. Also bound the AR400 to the DX8. Also soldered the motor wire extensions to the ESCes. Thought I followed the same pattern on each setup, but alas I found I did not. So at least 1 motor will spin backwards initially.
Sunday morning: programmed the ESCes individually.
Sunday afternoon: painted the white triangle squadron symbol on the vertical fins (scale markings and a great orientation marking), glued the nose cone on, glued in the fiberglass supports and motor mounts in the booms, modified the motor wire extension channel in the booms, glued the booms together, glued the hinges into the wing.
(holes in hinges to help with glue seeping through and bonding)
3-11-2014
I have to admit I had my doubts about the GWS glue and the hinges. But after 24 hours, the hinges were in the wing and weren't budging when I tried to wiggle them. The manual says to glue half into the wing and wait for glue to dry. No indications of how long this would take, so I did the wiggle/light tug test every couple of hours and in the morning to see how the glue was setting.
Last night the ailerons got glued onto the hinges, the boom alignment plates were glued in, glued in some plastic cups that are for holding the screws in that attach the booms to the wing, and a 4th and final coat of flat white applied to the triangles. When gluing the ailerons to the hinges I made sure to use a knife to wipe away the excess glue as it squeezed out of the slots as well as work the ailerons in both directions to ensure they weren't getting glued to the wings.
3-12-2014
Last night's progress included: plastic firewalls being glued on, the plastic horizontal stab support/install pieces being glued on, and cutting a V into the foam on the boom where it sits in the wing (I assume this is to help with wire routing later). And I don't know how anyone could build this kit with 1 tube of glue. I've not used it abundantly, just adequately/just enough/just right, and I had to crack open the second tube last night.
3-17-2014
Friday night the super charger cooling pods were cut out and glued on.
Saturday afternoon the motor mounts were screwed down, cowls were mounted, elevator cut from the horizontal stab. First I got the cowls seated how I liked the look, made alignment marks on the bottom of the nacelle and the cowl. Then put blue tape on the cowls, marked the location of the mounting plates on the foam, aligned the cowls, measured an 8mm x 8mm square for the mounting block locations, crossed the corners to find the center and drilled. The manual calls for a 1mm hole, I don't have a metric set yet, so I used my smallest drill bit which proved to be too big for the supplied 1.5mm screws. Since I'm not installing the landing gear, I was able to use the 2mm screws instead which bit and are holding tight.
Sunday afternoon the hinges were glued into the horizontal stab, touch up paint applied to the areas needing it, installed props and spinners, spun up both motors simultaneously for the first time (boy did they sound sweet for the brief seconds at 50% throttle in order not to wake the little one from his nap) to fix motor spinning directions. Also started cutting out the super charger covers for installation later.
Left to do: hinge elevator, install elevator control horns, attach horizontal stab to vertical fins, attach booms to wings, glue canopy parts together, run ESC wires, install 3 servos, setup said servos and throws. Hoping this week will mark completion, won't be able to maiden this week due to working our church's Royal Ambassador Derby on Saturday.
3-18-2014
Last night: hinged the elevators, cut the super charger covers down to size, cut canopy base down to size, scraped the green paint off the canopy and super charger covers, masked the canopy and traced the canopy frame.
Painting the insides seemed like a good idea to help protect the paint. However, so much of those areas on the super charger covers and canopy are used for gluing surfaces. So just a minor setback. Tonight I hope to cut the mask and get at least one coat of green on the canopy as well as mount the elevator control horns.
3-19-2014
Second coat on the canopy this morning. Unmasked and cleaned up this afternoon. A little better than previously. But more importantly, stab mounted to the booms and booms mounted to the wings. Had to enlarge the rear of the holes in the fins for the stab to fit. I may need to take them back of in order to run aileron servo wires. I also will be putting loc-tite on these screws and bolts.
3-20-2014
Drumroll please......... plane is together for all practical purposes. I calculate about 6 more items to glue on/together, also need to secure the electronics, paint the super charger covers after I glue them on, and of course balance the plane.
3-21-2014
Yesterday I sanded the wing saddle areas to be a flatter, better fit between the booms and wings. Also glued the canopy base to canopy, then after a few hours cut the hole in the back that will allow for the elevator pushrods to exit the canopy.