Things rather got in the way of completing the Extra Slim. The completed frames sat around for a few months with no further progress made on the covering.  A situation further exacerbated with the need to purchase a new covering iron added onto my to-do list.  I’ve had a bit of time over the last week and committed myself to doing a bit each evening. This strategy did the trick and just in time for the next Harlow and District Model Flying Club fun fly event! 🙂

A lot of parts for such a small box; a real builders kit is this model

It’s been over 8 months since my last post and I feel it’s time for another.  New flat, job and daily commute into London have been the main reason. I’m still getting used to be called ‘scientist’ instead of ‘student’ or ‘lab-rat’, but I cannot complain as it has all been a bit of an adventure and all my hard work has finally paid off.

In the meantime (not helped by all this wet weather) the hobby has been focused on the workbench and this introduces the subject for today. My new club (Harlow & District) occasionally host a fun-fly day and theme competitions such as Limbo, ground loops etc.  All great fun and while watching from the pits, between fuelling up my usual Heli, I promised myself to own a suitable machine in time for the next event. A quick browse online revealed the same Jive’s, Cougar’s as the rest of my club. A game of ‘snap’ anyone? Slec still produce the Limbo-Dancer as a kit which would allow for a little more scope for individuality and I was very tempted, but as luck would have it a Ripmax Extra-Slim came up on eBay and looked just the ticket.  Add a four stroke as an alternative to the usual electric motor and screaming 30 two strokes and it should look (and sound) very distinctive!

Tall and widely separated ribs make for a simple wing

A symetrical wing requires packing up the trailing edge off the board; I found standard servos were just the right height. An old 35Mhz receiver makes a perfect right angle square for aligning the ribs correctly 🙂

That’s the wing more or less done.

My chosen powerplant a thoroughly second hand OS40FS surpass. It was in a sorry looking ‘dipped in toffee’ state when it arrived as the previous owner(s) obviously preferred Castor oil…but a couple of evenings stripping down, cleaning (see here for how I did this) and rebuilding soon had it back up to spec.

Runs a treat too and idles so slow you can almost see the prop!

That’s it for now, I’ll post up more photos as the build progresses.