My newly finished Astron Elliptic II had a rough first day of flying. On the third flight one of the fins detached, like so:
I have to say this was a surprise to me; the fins were attached pretty well I thought, and this ticket only flies on A engines. It looks like the glue held but the surface layer of the BT was pulled off with the fin.
So, how to repair? And how to prevent in the future?
First, repair: should I just glue the whole thing back on? There's nice porous exposed paper on the fin and the BT, so it should glue well, but I don't know if I should be trimming the old fillets off the fin and basically starting again.
Also, for repair *and* prevention, I'm thinking this is what glue rivets are for. But although I've seen them mentioned a lot, I've not seen any detail on how to do them. How far apart should the holes be? How large? What is the gluing procedure?
Would it be reasonable to use some glue rivets in making this repair?
I have to say this was a surprise to me; the fins were attached pretty well I thought, and this ticket only flies on A engines. It looks like the glue held but the surface layer of the BT was pulled off with the fin.
So, how to repair? And how to prevent in the future?
First, repair: should I just glue the whole thing back on? There's nice porous exposed paper on the fin and the BT, so it should glue well, but I don't know if I should be trimming the old fillets off the fin and basically starting again.
Also, for repair *and* prevention, I'm thinking this is what glue rivets are for. But although I've seen them mentioned a lot, I've not seen any detail on how to do them. How far apart should the holes be? How large? What is the gluing procedure?
Would it be reasonable to use some glue rivets in making this repair?
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