EChapkis
Veteran
Location: Tampa, FL
| TwinstarLast night I had the chance to go through the Century Twinstar ARF.
First, the packaging was perfect. The mechanics, boom, blades, ect.. were all in boxes that were taped shut and the boxes were glued in the large box, so they wouldn't move.
The glass fuselage was wrapped in paper, then thin foam type wrap. The center section was wrapped in bubble wrap.
The quality of the paint on the fuselage is excellent. I do a lot of painting of fiberglass aircraft fuselages, cowls, wheel pants, ect... and they used a 2 stage base coat / clearcoat. The paint is supposedly an epoxy based paint. That is great as epoxy paints are much higher fuel proof than automotive enamels, unless you use a high end clear coat such as Imron or a few others.
The fuselage appears from the smell to be a polyester resin, not an epoxy resin. Polyester resins are harder to work with than epoxy resins and few companies use polyester for this reason. Some of the highest quality pattern fuselages I have worked on were polyester resin with a Kevlar reinforcement. From what I saw no carbon fiber or Kevlar reinforcement was used, but the fuselage is stiff, even around the window cut outs which maybe only 1/4" wide.
The mechanics appear to be assembled well, but I will make sure that all the bolts are locktited, probably dissasembling all the assemblies to ensure they were done right.
I also ordered the 46/50 size Centry Scale muffler. The muffler appears to be well made. I also ordered the Hawk IV/Falcon bearing upgrade. At this point I do not know what bushings get converted to bearings, but after looking at some of the mechanics, I would prefer bearings. Bushings may just work as well on this small chopper, but the more bearings the better.
I may start to work on it this weekend. Mine will be powered by a OS 46FX. Weight should be under 7 lbs. The 550 blades are the inexpensive Aertech woodies. I have a set of CMT 600's, but I think the bolt size will be too large. I would like to get a set of 570-580 glass blades with 3-4 degrees of washout. That should make for a smooth scale flight.
Evan Chapkis Tampa, Florida |
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