rubber band replacement

[zcoley]

hey everyone heres zcoley with yet another kinda dumb question.
i was winding up my propeller for my plains first flight and the rubber band snapped.
what do i do to get it out? i have the bf 109. its pritty banged up already and i want to try and keep it as intact as possible.
any help is appreciated. pics or examples or refferences are also welcome.

many thanks, Z

[Pauli72]

As Homer Simpson would exclaim...DoohHHH!!! Sorry to hear about the mishap Z.

Are you able to remove the cowl off the fuselage? As long as you can get it off without trashing the firewall, or B-1 formers you're OK. If not, you've got some major surgery to do.

Can you post a pic?

[zcoley]

Ive been working on this bf 109 for a while. It looks pritty bad now. The band is all bunched up in the back. I don't think the camera I have will be able to capture it. Ill try though. Thinking of making this a display instead And the nose cowel is on there pritty good. Don't think it will come off.

-Z

[Pauli72]

If you want to, you can use a new Exacto blade to carefully seperate (pry off) the cowl from the fuselage. This will be necessary to get access to the inside of the fuselage. When cutting in, try to err on the side of cutting balsa, and not the plastic of the cowl. This will all likely be replaced anyway.
You will also probably need to remove the wooden dowel at the rear that retains the rubber. By the sound of it, the rubber is pretty well knotted up in the back, so you're going to need to get that dowel out. You may end up needing to cut the motor mounts on either side that hold the dowel, completely out of the fuselage. These can be replaced pretty easily.

If you want to do these operations, you're on your way to getting her back in the air.

[Wildpig]

If it's all bunched up at the back, you could try slicing out a section of tissue on the belly of the airplane just below
the motor mount. Pick out the rubber with a pair of needle nose pliers. On some models, it gets pretty tight back there,
I've sliced up the rubber bunch with an x-acto knife and pulled out little pieces until all was removed.

[zcoley]

thanks everyone!! if i dont mess it up to bad ill post pics when im done. rite now it looks prity bad.

-Z

[Steve Blanchard]

Hey Z,

Broken motors are very common and there have been many ways to take care of this. The best way I have found is to take one of those spring loaded grabber claws (See Pic below) and use it to grab the motor through the nose block. As you pull the motor forward you need to untwist it by letting the grabber tool turn as you pull at the motor. Now, you have an issue if you didn't modify the noseblock when you built the model to make a larger opening. If you are using the crappy thrust button stuck in the round hole that comes with the kit then the hole is probably too small. It's also why you are having trouble trimming the plane to fly well. Thrust adjustment is critical to good flights and the Guillows design for this absolutely fails.

IMG_0391.jpg

IMG_0393-482x362.jpg

I hope this helps,

Steve

[zcoley]

awesome, i have one of those!!! will attempt. thank you.

-Z

[zcoley]

I cut out the motor mounts in the rear. Got the band out. Went the barbaric rout. It looks bad but I'm going to make this thing fly!! Then get the mustang...build and use what I learned to make an awesome build. Thanks for the help everyone. -Z