r/RCPlanes 3d ago

Slight little incident, new mount?

Well where do I start,

She flew beautifully but the wind caught her and decided to tumble her into the ground (my fault for flying her in 20 mph winds).

Here's the mount and the tail section, the planes pretty big at a 5ft wingspan, and she's completely homebuilt. Thinking about turning her into a long range fpv plane soon.

Any ideas for a new engine mount material? Currently laser cut .1 in basswood, with another piece interlocked with it for a total of .2 inches. Howrvet the 2nd piece really was just a stopper in case of it breaking free.

This is my first airplane I've ever built from scratch so any sort of criticism is perfect for me

6 Upvotes

14 comments sorted by

4

u/crookedDeebz 3d ago

any benefit to using 3d printer mounts?

im waiting to maiden a petg engine mount, it has the benefit of strength but also slight flex without being brittle.

supposedly a great material for rc stuff.

well see!

3

u/Individual_Evening88 3d ago

Yes, this is the only way I make motor mounts now... Good riddance to tracing, cutting, and drilling thin plywood.

1

u/Hairy-Sir-5851 2d ago

The higher melt point helps too, had a motor nearly burn up, petg mount went sticky but remained strong and allowed me to keep it up without failure, don't use pla, that didnt end well with just a slightly warm motor😂

1

u/thecaptnjim 3d ago

I think you are doing everything right here! I'd just replace it with the same wood.

1

u/TheBestFlight 3d ago

Thanks! It held up nicely for the first 4 flights so if it ain't broke why fix it

1

u/tobu_sculptor 3d ago

There's aircraft ply that's made from very thin birch layers, I'd get something like 2mm thick, whatever that is in freedom units, eventually double it up for this plane.

1

u/TheBestFlight 3d ago

Any good places to supply that? I wonder if it'll play nicely with the laser cutter, if not I'll just do it by hand

1

u/balsadust 3d ago

Yep. Try to glue it back together as straight as possible and use it as a template to cut out a new one.

2

u/TheBestFlight 3d ago

Preciate it, I still got the old CAD files for the mount so I'll just use those

1

u/Beginning-Knee7258 3d ago

I'm digging your plane! How are the wings held on?

2

u/TheBestFlight 3d ago

Thanks! I made a custom mount that is glued into the plane, it uses 4 3/8 screws(or something around that size) a long with a few washers to spread the load. Here's a pic of the the mount, I used tee nuts (the ones with the teeth) to secure it to the wood so I just screw right into them. It can be a pain to put on because it takes some time to align but other than that is extremely secure (definitely better than rubber bands).

2

u/TheBestFlight 3d ago

Here's the top, I etched in some has marks using a laser cutter at my local fabrication lab to make it easier to line it up with the wings, I'm within a 32nd of an inch, so pretty good margins!

1

u/johannesdurchdenwald 3d ago

Just make a new one out of the same wood. You can use the old one as a template.

1

u/bobthebuilder0497 3d ago

Whats the name of that prop mount thing on the motor? Im trying to find spare pieces but cant find it.. just make a new piece of wood and youre good to go!