RC India

After quite a few scratch builds decided to build from a kit. Ordered Cloud Dancer kit from RCB, was delivered in 2 days.

Was packed excellently. So no damage to the kit.

Opened, the pack and looked around. The first impressions as follows
1. Horrible instruction - if you can call a few pictures and few lines of text as instruction.
2. Inconsistent laser cutting. Have opened only the fuse part. Noticed that one side of fuse is nicely cut but the other has laser marks only. Had a hard time cutting light ply and balsa as per the marks.

Will post pictures as I go along, but would like to compare notes if anyone else has build this bird.

One thing i missed ordering is covering film. Question is what length do i require?

Pankaj,

I have the kit but have not yet started it. True, the instructions are not great, and at times the laser cutting could be better, but hey....at that price it's pretty OK. The balsa and ply quality is good.

I have completed and successfully flown the Piper Cub and Red Swan in this series, and managed fine with (or without  :giggle:) the instructions given.

I estimate you would need 2 metres of covering film

Some photos of the fuse build.

Had difficulty in making two sides equal. As I said, one side had nicely laser cut pcs, while the other just had burn marks from laser, cutting out the ply and balsa in this situation to match the other pc is actually a difficult task. Outlines are OK, the main problem is the holes in the middle.....

views of the nose part

Fuse - final shape, finishing required....

Problem with the wing build...
1. No parts are labeled, so one has to do a quite a few iterations to figure out what goes in where.
2. Wost, ribs sizes are uneven - the length of at least 2 ribs are smaller than the rest.... :banghead:
3. The holes for spars are uneven in the trailing part of the wing.....
4. The main load carrying spar has at-least a 0.5mm play making the ribs move about. Without a plan,placing the ribs in parallel alignment is a major tas
5. At least two parts of wing covering (top surface from spar to TE, for 3 rribs) MISSING from kit. I had to make up from 1.5mm balsa lying around.

Since I love scratch building, this is not a major problem, but did not anticipate this form of complexity from a commercial 'kit' version. Maybe my mistake.

Anyway, will post pictures of wing later....

Be careful: those 2 ribs are probably smaller for a reason. There may very well be some balsa on TE or LE

OK, This is what I was talking about, when I said the ribs are unequal.

Another view of the wings....

During construction, the following also was noticed.
1. When the rib strengthening balsa pcs were being fixed, the length of laser cut was not as per requirement - as expected, the length for top was longer than the one required for the flat bottom, except that the strip meant for the top was smug fitting the lower surface, leaving me to add small strips to the other set to fix at the top.

2. While building ailerons, the plan/image shows some strengthening pcs, these were not identified, but since adequate scrap/extra balsa was available, this was done manually.

OK, most of the construction done, I started ironing the covering....
First try on a flat surface of the elevator

More images....

The pcs were first covered, then the hinges were attacted with feviquik (CA) and then ironed a small cover on top of the hinge. Chk out the rudder

More pics...

OK, for covering, I do not have a temperature controlled covering iron and for now, did not intend to spend close to Rs.3000 when I was not even sure of my capabilities on this subject. Instead I bought a small travel iron from ebay for about Rs 400. Tested on a small pcs and this is the result.

The travel Iron does not generate too much heat, so for tacking and shrinking, kept the iron on MAX, for add on stickers, kept it on a couple of notches lower.

For wing edges, since it involved compound curves, first I tried using this same ironing technique. This was not proving effective. I read that this is best handled by use of heat gun. Since I did not have that either, I used the normal Iron - again kept at MAX. works beautifully. Some 'hard to remove' crease were removed by keeping a layer of tissue between the big iron and the surface and pressed slightly - viola.

Pretty satisfied with the first attempt 

You should cut a slot in the balsa and fit the mylar hinges with CA. They look ugly on top

Whatever happened to this build log??

Sent from my GT-S7562 using Tapatalk 2

Whatever happened to this build log??   ??? ??? ??? ???

any sir have Cloud Dancer rc planes designe ......... or any idea ......... to build home made Cloud Dancer rc plane............ ples sending on my email.anandbarve21@gmail.com

No idea at all. The original does not come with plans.