12/16/2009
In an effort to make a push to get this thing done, I'm going to try and put at least two sessions in a week over at Rich's house. Rich had an idea to make better push rods...rather than installing a wood bracket for the original one's to slide thru to keep them from bending...use carbon fiber tube, rather than rod. Tubing is much more rigid than rod, so we ran to the hobby shop after work tonight, and bought what we needed to remake them. The new one's turned out much better, and are MUCH stronger than the first one's we made.
Rather than strapping the steel to the cf rod, the tubing allows for the steel to slide inside. We wrapped the rod with thread to prevent it from splintering from the bending forces.
We used the same method for the control horn clevis, except we used threaded rod back there this time to allow for adjustments if/when needed.
Had to put a bend in the rudder rod because the cf tubing is too rigid to make the bend over to the horn. All works great now!
Next time I hope to start installing electronics!