Ok, well Im working on a body for the AruduCopter 3DR-B frame and keep in mind that I don't have one here at my house. Its at my brothers house. He is the Tec wizard and is doing all of the FPV hookup and other mods for it. I am more of the artist and felt that I had to do something for this project so I wanted to do something that looks cool and is functional. I didn't want to have a CD case covering, not because I didn't like it but because it wasn't a big enough project for me. ;) I have built planes and other projects with balsa wood before and that was fun. I have never built something this "round" before so putting on the monocoat will be a challenge. Im pretty sure I can do it but we will see. I built a mock frame out of wood using the files on line for measurments and then built the body onto the mock frame. Im not going to show the mock frame because its kind of embarrassing. ;)
I will try to post more pics when I get to the monocoating processes.
Here is the frame at about half stage:
Here it is all built and a good coat of primer on it. (helps the monocoat stick better)
Im taking it over for a "fitting" tonight and then I can make some adjustments before the final stage.
BTW the front is the round side and the back is the pointed side. It will be coated with a carbon fiber pattern skin and there will be a nice thick bright yellow stripe going along the high point on the rear. There will be a small FPV camera mounted in the front with the mount made from plastic (3-D printer) and finished to look like the rest of the body. The antenna for the FPV camera will probably be mounted in the rear of the body with the antenna pointed downward.
Believe it or not, this weighs about the same as a plastic CD case....
More to come later.....
Comments
Here is the progression pictures from primer to final paint and detailing.
Enjoy... The paint was tougher than I figured it would be. Its been so hot here that the yellow paint was "melting" under the second (3rd and 4th) coat. It was a pain in the but I think it turned out pretty good considering it took me over a week to get the paint right. Tissue paper is old school for a reason, I think...
Primer coat.
Just a clear coat and its ready for flight.
Well, when I was putting on the tissue paper I had to put on at least 3 layers to make it strong enough. Still, 3 layers of tissue paper is still pretty thin. Also, I didn't get it as smooth as I was hoping. It had a bit of a "paper mache" look. I tried to sand it a bit but it was really thin so the solution was to coat it with a thin coat of wood filler that was watered down to just a bit thinner than sour cream consistency. It brushed on quite nicely over a coat of primer. The filler sanded very nicely and did what I had hoped it would. Then I put another coat of primer (nice and thick) and i think one more light sanding and it will turn out the way I want.
There is still a little rough spots but its much tougher than monocoat and only a little heavier. I think it will look great and really help to orientate when flying.
well, the monocoat didn't work out. Its too round and the coating got a bit tricky. So, I went old school and did the tissue paper coating method. Its a bit more work but I think its going to get the look I want. I will put up some pics when I get the primer on it but I think its going to look pretty cool. It will probably be a bit tougher as well. A little heavier but I don't think it will be too heavy. We will see though.
Thanks, Im still working on the exact method of attachment. Its between rubber bands and velcro. I will probably go with the velcro but Im still thinking about that.
nice! is it easy to remove?
I am sure you will see a lot more of these hoods.. I am waiting for my CNC to start having fun with materials to create some... your design is interesting and I will keep an eye on it.
I did the test fit last night and it fit almost perfect. Just a little adjustments but over all it fits great. Now, The tricky part of putting the skin on...
@Ruwan, I use a xacto blade for fine work but most of the cutting is done on a scroll saw. It makes it nice because I can cut up to 10 pieces in one cut. Thats nice when there is more than one piece that is the same size but most of the pieces are different sizes.
@cvanvollenstee, Thats a cool material, I may have to check that out for later projects. For this one, however, I think its too heavy and too sensitive to heat. Also, I noticed it said it was for prototyping and doesn't have a long shelf life.
@ R. D. Starwalt, Thanks for the compliment. I too like some of the old school looks of models. I am, however, going to try to make a positive mold of this design so I can make a vacuums form version of this body if there is an interest.
@ Harry, I know exactly what your talking about! My brothers kids have one of those but I never saw it actually fly. My wife said it looks like a bike helmet so I think I would rather go with flying toy thing. ;)
That is very nice and light.
It's funny how you see a post and a pic and get a wrong idea of what it;s all about until you click on it. I saw the pic and thought it was a single rotor with the pic being of the torque driven part. Not sure I described that right, but there was a toy a few years ago which had a single prop and motor housed in a bigger foam "prop". It only went straght up and down, but the motor and prop on the inside was used to drive the bigger foam blades on the outside - driven by torque and airflow.
It looked similar to what youre bulding and yet was very different.
It is a bold set of lines and I congratulate you on using wood for your prototype.
I think that all too often there is a push to create something that is ready to mass produce when the physical process of taking a natural raw material and turning it into something pleasing to the eye has far more benefit than utility.
It is a case of form over function (the artist inside me is speaking out today). That is why I will never look at any RTF foam aircraft and consider it beautiful. There are several very pretty and attractive foam models and maybe one or two beautiful ones - this is rare. There have been legions of ugly balsa models also but rare is the case when looking through vintage plans from the 1930's and forward.
Carve on dude! Balsa flys better!
Very nice, good design just one thing I would have used protoplastic instead of wood because the first good crash (which will happen) you are going to have, you are going to pick up some pieces of your very nice frame. Here is a url of the product http://www.netram.co.za/Prototyping-Materials/Protoplastic/Protopla...
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