sam holman

I would make your blocks of wood from maple, you will need the strength of it to hold the metal, and a v will do the same job as the round groove. In fact if you can hold it in a bench vise you will not need the wood. I would think the real trick to make it straight is to find steel rod to insert into end of your metal tube and a pipe over it. They should be tight fit and two feet long or longer. The more purchase you have the more control you will have to make it straight. You will have to over bend your tube to make it true. Also it is a lot easier to correct one tube at a time and weld them back together. Good luck, Sam

Steve, That is an excellent builder's tip. Tip of the year to you. Sam

I think we forgot Burt's bath tub.

If you think of the tub as a canoe you will have little problem bringing your project home. Yes you could put on the roof rack with the foam and put the rest in the car. Not the best way to travel. An extended cargo van is the next step up. If the strake is on the tub you will want a cube van. Remember to secure your load as things will shift and do damage if you don't. If this does not appeal check out your local truck stop and see if a trucker is willing to back haul your project. Just remember if he hauls hogs your plane will smell like hogs for a while. Good luck!

Ross, I hold both the Defiant and Eracer plans. There is no doubt the Defiant plans are thorough. The point being you can construct an Eracer a few good men have proven that. Dickey has given you the most license to build the plane you want. You will have to decide what that is. All of the Eracers that I have seen and read about are quite unique. Hours that I spent on these plans and the plans on this forum and others do give one great insights on how Designers like Burt and Shirl solved problems with the materials used in all of these planes. It is an honor to see how they started with no plans to allow us to build such incredible variety of very fast efficient planes before green was invented.

Will you still need me now that I am 64? I have a pair of transgression glasses that get too dark as I head into the sun and old age. I would now think twice about tinted wind screens. I also know not in all cases are our eyes the same. Ask your eye doctor they have a good ideal if your eyes are like mine. I am sure they don't mind making second clear canopies. Cheers, Sam:

Many of Burt's prototypes were 75% models. The original defiant was slightly smaller than the plans built. It still required power, two 150 hp engines to fly and several modifications in engines and props were made over the years it flew. They resulted in better climb performance but not much in speed as I recall. S

Jack, I know I am only curious, pictures, drawings??? This is more dramatic than Penn over Rourke. Please give us a break. Sam

It is global economy. Lowest wages, cost, materials, transport and a paid for factory. If you do not have this you can not compete. I can only think of a few A:irked: Asian countries where it is possible. By nature we are loners and this makes the above even harder to achieve. All efforts that defy the global are true heroic stories of sacrifice and we are blessed to have them. S

Chrissi, True enough, I agree Murphy's law exist but the aim is to avoid this law I doubt if I or we will ever eliminate it. I have plenty of stripped couplings between lead screws and stepper motors, broken cutters, fried drives, the list goes on. Yes it either gets fixed or scrapped. Production or one offs does create everything imaginable and the cheque book is always near the top of the pile. S

Making sure your tool is running within its border, in other words not machining itself and using tool paths are two of the beauties of CNC machining. Doing these simple checks on your screen and without the tool chucked in place before you cut one or a thousand of your desires is helpful. Its like flying got to do those checks to avoid the hanger rash of learning. S

This is certainly a fun way to spend time and money, but you'll save a lot of both by paying Todd's Canopies to do it for you. I figured I could try this method since I was building an off-size canopy. The MDF for the forms cost around $80 (the first set wasn't right), the plunge bit for the router another $18. The two gas burners (and the extra one to replace the one that caught on fire) were another $25 each. Then the propane tank, hose attachments, etc... at least $50. Probably $100 to build the 4'x8'x4' oven, out of wood & insulation foam. $20 for the oven thermometers to track temps... So that's only about $350 so far, now for the expensive stuff... I bought two sheets of 1/8" plexiglass, figured I'd learn on the cheap stuff, then move up to 3/16". Layed the plexiglass over the MDF form, layed the other MDF sheet on-top, bolted it down onto the oven, fired up the burners. About 20 minutes in, the sheet cracked where the bolts held it down. (Plexiglass expands a lot as it heats to 275 degrees. You need some type of "floating" clamp system". About $50 more in clamping attachments later, I tried again. This time I got a good bubble, but as the bubble got to about 18" in depth, the air would escape. I'd have to re-clamp the whole thing together, try again... Did this several times before un-even temps in the oven caused distortions in the bubble shape. I'd sunk more than $500 in this venture and was pretty sure it would take another 5 or six tries to get it right, at $50 a pop for the plexiglass, and who knows how much more to upgrade the oven. Called Todd's Canopies and he quoted me $425 for exactly what I wanted, plus shipping. Wish I'd done that from the start. BTW -- he's spent years perfecting the technique. He rebuilt his oven to accomodate the size of my canopy request. Uses quartz heat lamps the works. I usually encourage people to try it themselves, but in this case, don't waste your time and money -- get it done right. If we as builders were driven by dollars, whatever they are these days would do nothing. The original post asked about forming Plexiglas into a form. That would be a true challenge. I think that is why canopies are glassed or framed in metal after they are formed. I don’t think one would want to touch a liquid hot plastic bubble with any thing but a laser light beam. As to clamping the solid plywood, Plexiglas, plywood form sandwich that was done with ¼ inch and one half machine bolts with washers screwed into T nuts spaced every five or six inches. The plastic must be clamped firmly and needs to be air tight to apply air pressure. Yes the holes in the plastic are enlarged to one half inch to allow for the movement. The three boxes of hardware from Home Depot were not dear. It can be done and I am sure Todd welcomes business fortunately we have choices. It is a very rewarding process to observe and work on. As is reading this forum and the skill sets it takes to build our planes.

Our chapter in Ottawa has 4x4x8 insulated oven in which a sandwich of 3/4 plywood,plexiglass and 3/4 plywood is suspended at the top of the oven. It takes about 3 hours to get the electrical heaters to temperature. At this point the plastic is elastic like a soap bubble. Low air pressure is applied and the bubble is blown. A laser beam is used to set the depth of the canopy. The shape is determined by the perimeter of the canopy marked and sawn out on the two plywood sheets. Imagine a double ended rowboat and that is the primary shape for most canopies. The trick is to hold a constant air pressure to hold the shape until the bubble cools to hold the shape. The optics from the outside in tell you nothing but from the inside looking out is a marvel.

Re: Useful Load Long EZ Chris I had an E Racer and the wing/canard was the same as the LE except the trailing edge was straight and there is 25% more wing spar caps and canard spar caps. The vne on the E racer was 300 mph, I had mine to 291 mph T at 10,000. My AC was a very heavy version of the E Racer. The stock MGW was 2000 lbs with a 0320 or small alumunum buick v8. I installed a 360 hp supercharged IO540 with extra fuel and tested it to 2240 lbs,take off weight only. That weight was with 370 lbs, pilot/pass, 69 gal of fuel and about 20 lbs of baggage. That weight also included 25 lbs of nose ballast weight to offset the heavy engine. I know these numbers are most likely of no value for what you are looking for but I thought you might be interested. Jack E Racer Extreme Jack Have you lengthen the fuselage on your new e racer to eliminate the ballast? Sam

Gianmarko, I went with gas radiant tube to heat a large space here in Canada. You do need ceiling hight I have 15 feet. It is heat on demand takes about 30 minutes to be epoxy warm in January. Sam