Mud Duck Aviation Forums

Had the Agri Duck Sport plans for way to long and I should have started the build by now. This is going to be a slower build then my last blue duck. I am going to be useing FFF and doing my best to keep things light. Most of my builds I tend to way over build. According to the Mud Duck Site the foam board version should be 8-11 pounds. I am going to try and keep the Blue Agri Duck Sport below 5 pounds. That means no hot glue and I may change out the wooden dowels with carbon fiber.


Pic to follow
Post away guys

Mike

The Agri Duck Sport plan sheets fit perfectly on a sheet of FFF. I don't like to cut up plans so what I am doing is useing a pizza cuter to score the foam. I am just rolling it along the lines useing a straight edge. Works good for the ducks because they are straight. Now there are 3 plan's sheets so in order to build this all you need is 5 sheets of FFF because you will need 2 wings and fuse sides obviously.





First sheet of foam cut out.working on the repeat of this. This will get me both fuse sides and a few extra parts.





in the theme of light E-Power Blue Duck I am not useing the wood in the nose. I also decided to use 3/4" blue foam for the bulkhead's instead of FFF. On my last blue duck which was way over built I added extra bulkheads and stiffeners. I fill pretty sure that using the 3/4" for the bulkheads will do away with the need of the extra bulkheads aiding in keeping things light.






Mike

The plans call for a 3/8" light ply engine mount. I know that this part adds a lot of strength to the nose but I dont need near as much as a glow powered model would. I opted to instead laminate a piece of FFF with two pieces of 1/16" balsa useing gorilla glue. I first took a fork and perforated the FFF  to allow the gorilla glow to expand and form a tight bond to both side's. On this piece I did wet both pieces of wood to really kick off the glue.





Not glued yet just a test fit.



Mike

My intention is to us the bulk head that goes behind where the glow motor would mount as the mount for the out runner. I will use the section of the floor so to speak the is covered by the nose for a battery mounting point. I will work that out more once I decide for sure what I am going to use for power. If I can keep the weight down to 5 pounds or less I figure 700 or so watts will be plenty. The trick part is finding a  motor with low enough kv rating to let me turn a 20 or so inch prop at 700 watts on 5s with out needing a gear boxed out runner.





Mike

Started putting the back end on



Mike

Awesome job Mike!  Your ears must have been ringing since I began to wonder if you were ever going to build it.  I took a look on RCGroups to see what you had been posting and working on at the moment and I saw that you opened up your own hobby shop!!! 

Enough said!  Starting your own business (as well as keep ing your regular job, I'm sure) takes a lot out of you. Even with the best intentions it seems there isn't enough time in the day, days in the week, weeks in the month, etc to get even half of what you want, or say you will, done.  I figured you would get around to it when you got enough of the bug to.

I just registered to be a vendor at NEAT this year, and really need to slap some Ducks together to have around and fly for exposure.  Unless I lock myself in the shop for a couple of weeks, it is a tall order to get some electrics ready in time. 

The good news is that one of my big hold ups has been trying to get my own printing equipment set up to print plan on demand instead of having delays from the print shop when I run out, and (hopefully soon) to offer plans at a cheaper price.  Well my first two attempts at used equipment resulted in less than desired quality or took way too long to spool and print, and required being supervised (not very efficient).  So I made a bigger investment and think I have it under control and should be able to begin printing in-house very soon.

Mike I look forward to the progress and GOOD LUCK with B and R Hobbies http://www.bandrhobbies.com/!!!

Thanks Greg. I started to get everything lined out to build it about 4 times now and something would come up and it wound up back burnered. Yes I am still working my regular job. I put in 12hr a day m-f and 10 on saturday between the 2. Good thing is the hobby shop is about 300 feet from my day job so it works out to where I can run both places at the same time. Some times that's good some times it's not.

As for the Agri-Duck the FFF is working great. When built by the plan's it is extremely Stout and there is NO flex at all. Even in the nose where I did not use the balsa strips. I need to load some more pics when I get home about what I think is a very very important mod to make when building one out of FFF. All in all I can say with out a doubt that if any one ever ask you if they can build one out of FFF the answer is yes. There are a few things to address the main be the fact that it is not think enough for the overlap on the back bulk head. That was the main reason I went with the 3/4" blue core on there bulk heads.

Mike

I am deviating from the plans just a bit I forgot to pick up any dow rodes for the tail and I wanted to leave the bottom of the tail off until I get some long control rods. I plane on putting the servo's up front instead of on the tail. This takes a couple of oz's off the tail.

So I wasn't just looking at it I started working on the cabin "greenhouse". Now this is not glued it is just taped into place for a test fit but it is getting glued up now.





On the tail do to the thinness of the FFF I decided to a strip of 3/4" foam at the joints. This was only to give the glue a bit more area to grab not because I thought the tail needed any added strength.



Mike

I am a bit concerned about the area where the wing struts attach to the fuse. So with that in mind I added a bit of wood to stiffen things up a bit. I will also run a 1/2"x1/4" hard wood across this area before attaching the wood to the outside of the foam for the wing strut mount.





As it sets here it wieghs in at a whopping 15.65oz. Yeap less then a pound and the fuss is nearly complete. Defiantly a record for me.



 

Mike

Greg or anyone that has built a Duck with foam board. Do you have a idea about weight on the bare fuss.

Mike

Well the tail is in place. now if i can get the wings finished up "haven't started yet" next week I might get to put it in the air next weekend.







any one have any ideas about a paint job?

Mike

Sorry Mike, I didn't catch this question sooner.  I have never weighed the fuse alone.  The best I can do is check the weight on the Full Scale Agri-Duck Fuse and scale it down to give you a ball-park.  I have a bare fuse in my garage I can weigh, I just happen to be at work at the moment.

Greg

That's cool I guess it dont really matter I was just looking for some comparison. To be honest I am shock at how light it is coming out. I didn't get anything done to it last night.

Mike

Mike,

I couldn't dig out my digital scales but on an old (but pretty good) mechanical scale, a FoamCor Mud Duck Sport fuse at the same state of completion as your A-D weighed almost exactly 2 lbs. So you are half as light in that respect.  I measured the full size A-D fuse that was almost as built as your's but still didn't have a tail or one of the bottom panels and it was 3.25 lbs. scaled down 25% in weight puts it at almost 2.5 lbs. not as complete as the Blue Foam version.

I think Blue Foam may very well be the material of choice for at least the electric builders.

Greg

Well got a little more work done. My scale's stopped working for some reason. I would be willing to bet it is the battery. I lost the plug along time ago and I am bad about leaving them on. But here is a photo of it setting on the floor with the wings setting beside the fuss.



Mike