MENDING FUSES
Graham Woods

Who hasn’t cracked or split a fuselage and found it awkward to repair? Here’s a method picked up from an E-mail on the Net (the Radio Control Soaring Exchange List) which is simple although I haven’t tried it myself. I hope my drawing is good enough but there’s an explanation too... You may need to remove, or push aside, the elevator pushrod and pull-pull rudder wires.

• Thread a piece of string through the crack or hole in the fuselage.

• Slide over it the piece or pieces of glass cloth or Kevlar you intend to do the repair with.

• Slide over the string a piece of thin ply, balsa (or even card) cut in a such a way that it will easily follow the curve of the inside of the fuse.

• Fix this ply or balsa to the string with a knot or a drop of cyano.

• Now wet out the glass cloth with epoxy resin and pull on the string... the glass cloth should be pulled up tight against the inside of the fuselage.

• Ensure a good contact between the glass cloth and fuse inside.

• All you need to do then is to prop the fuselage on the bench with the cracked or hole facing downward and dangle a weight from the string to keep the glass and ply in place inside the fuse.

• When the resin has set slice off the piece of string and fill the fuselage in the normal way from the outside.