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How to repair a tailboom
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Don't you just hate it...
when are out having fun practicing your autorotations, and one gets a little bit goofy? If you are lucky, it will just bounce and you'll hear ridicule from the pits section. If you are less lucky (and if you add a little bit of aft cyclic at touchdown) you will bounce around, but in addition to the ridicule from the pits, you will also hear that nasty click of death. That's right, your main rotor just flexed down far enough to hit the top of your tailboom. While it is your choice to fly or not to fly with such damage, sometimes it just looks unprofessional.Since I've flown a few model airplanes, I have trouble killing that instinct to flare with the aft cyclic during the touchdown. If you have ever tried any autorotations, you know that this is the most reliable way to initiate a boom strike. It just happens that I've had several chances to practice my tailboom repair techniques, so here they are. Keep in mind that any such repairs you do require common sense, so don't fly with substandard parts. And as with everything else on my web page, I'm not responsible for anything you ever do.
Not all tailbooms are eligible for repair; actually the one featured in the pictures is a bit of a stretch due to the sharp point that accompanies the dent. If there are any sharp kinks or points, you probably won't be able to fix it completely. If it is a dent with all rounded edges, you can probably make it look like new.
First, you will want to gather the appropriate tools. I use a socket collection, a hammer, a few socket extensions, and occasionally a wooden dowel.
The object is to ram a cylindrical object down the boom, that will gradually cause the dent to go away. Serious boom strikes will require more gradual changes in cylinder size. My favorite source for cylinders is my socket set. I start with one that just barely catches anything on the way through, then work up from there. Keep in mind that having both metric and SAE sets will allow you to make progress more slowly.
I use a hammer to drive a socket down the pipe. It scratches up the sides of the socket, so be sure to account for that if you are worried about the socket's finish. As you can see from the progressive pictures, the dent starts to come out as the socket size goes up.
Eventually, you will work your way up to a cylinder that is the same outer diameter as the pipe's inner diameter. When you get to that point, you will still have a little wavy section that corresponds with the dent. If you don't care about how the stuff looks, then you are ready to fly. On the other hand, if you didn't care what it looked like, then why bother removing the dent at all?
However, if you want to be one of the few super tailboom repair experts around, you can do one more step that will greatly minimize the residual dents. Drive the closest fitting cylinder that you have into the pipe. Use the hammer on the outside of the pipe to flatten the little wavy sections. This takes a little bit of finesse, so practice with little force. The object isn't to make another dent to repair. If you cylinder of choice happens to be a socket, be sure to confine your hammering to the area that is protected by a socket. The goal here isn't to drive nails... it shouldn't wake up your neighbors. When I do it, I just hold the pipe in one hand and the hammer in the other. That way I can feel how much force I am sending to the boom, and I haven't managed to add too many dents with that procedure.
See, that wasn't so bad, was it? If you tried to use this procedure on a Hirobo Freya or Eagle, then you probably realized that it didn't work. Be sure that the boom you are trying to repair is a thinwalled alluminum pipe, with a circular cross section. Quite obviously, a carbon boom has little hope.
My raptor booms turn out pretty well, and any time that I can spend 15 minutes of repair to save $5 on a new part, I'm all for it.
Email me if you have any suggestions or questions.
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| This page last modified 03/27/09 | |||||