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Aerotech KitsI am currently in the process of finishing up Aerotech's Arreaux kit and as this is my first mid-power kit, I was quite surprised at the ease of assembly. Then again, I have been doing this for a total of about, oh, 5 years (I had about a 20 year hiatus from the hobby, though, so this isn't all at once experience). The first thing I noticed in the instructions is to use cyanoacrylate (CrazyGlue(tm) always comes to mind with this type of cement) to cement things together in the kit. My only problem with it is traditionally, CA has great tensile strength, but rather poor shearing strength. Rather than see parts pop off the rocket should it land hard, I used 30 minute epoxy throughout the construction of this rocket. I know it's a bit heavier, but I prefer its superior strength to CA. I must admit, this was my first time working with epoxy, and I was a bit nervous, but I got great results following the instructions on the bottle and I'm quite happy with the results. A note of caution concerning epoxies: ALWAYS WEAR SOME KIND OF PROTECTIVE GLOVES, SUCH AS THE DISPOSABLE LATEX VARIETY AVAILABLE AT MANY DRUG STORES!!!! I can't stress this enough. This is some pretty nasty stuff if you get it on you too often. This also applies to resins in general. All in all, I'm impressed with the Arreaux. It looks cool (even though it is not painted yet) and it ought to fly well. I'm looking forward to my first 'E' and 'F' flights with this baby. UPDATE: I have finished and flown the Arreaux and flies beautifully. It has made a total of 10 flights to date and still has some life left in her. I have also built the Cheetah (4 flights) and the HV Arcas (1 flight). Both great kits, and they fly well. The HV Arcas is especially impressive on lift off with a F20-4W. Those econojets are cool and give the Arcas a nice, slow boost. Next flight will be on a F50-6T.
This page last modified on July 23, 2002 10:37:42 PM . |
