Blade covering exploded??

[chilipepper]

Well maybe not exactly a woof and poof... but it went woof and I think I may have went poof in my drawers! :shock:

I was flying around minding my own business... basically doing figure 8 patterns and working on fast forward flight when I banked into a turn and "WWOOOOOOFFFF". The blades went violently out of track and I very quickly returned to a hover at a safe distance. The heli and I both regained composure and I slowly flew closer to land and it did it again right before touching down.

Upon landing and inspecting the condition it turns out the covering on the end of one of the woodies was totally gone! Which would explain the issue to some degree but I have a couple of questions:

What would have caused it (it was the 4th flight of the day and I didn't touch the ground with the blade)??

Is it even worth trying to patch or recover the blade?? If so how does one go about it?? Where do you get the covering/supplies?

Thanks! I'm off to get the poof out of my britches?

[WayneBrown]

Don't try to patch them.
Yuo can get shrink wrap for the blades, but he time to remove old, install new is just not worth it. Get new woodies.
Causes could be QC, bad luck, or some outside influence..

[capebob]

The shrink wrap only lasts so long. Yes, you can recover your blades. When I was using woodies I recovered my blades with vinyl sign material. You can usually get enough in your favorite color to cover several sets of blades out of the scrap bin at your local sign shop for little or no money especially if you take your helicopter in and show it to the guys at the shop.

Strip the shrink wrap from your blades. You will cover your blades from the ends of the plastic to the tip. Cut a piece of sign material the length of your blades from the end of the plastic to about 1" past the tip. Cut the material wide enough to wrap around the blade and overlap about 1/4". Starting on the underside of the blade lay one edge of your material about 1/2" behind the leading edge so that went you start covering the rest of the blade you will go toward the trailing edge of the blade. Carefully lay the plastic along the bottom of the blade and wrap it around the trailing edge. Then wrap across the top of the blade and carefully wrap around the leading edge. Finish the wrap by overlapping the material on the bottom of the blade. It's important to do it this way to keep the overlap facing aft so it won't be picked up by the wind. Now you say, what about the blade tip. Pinch the material together and trim to about 1/8". It doesn't look too bad and will hold up well. Soak the uncovered wooden area next to the grips with thin CA to fuel proof, balance your blades, and go fly.

Be sure to discard the blades if they are damaged at all.

Bob

[WillJames]

The shrink wrap only lasts so long. Yes, you can recover your blades. When I was using woodies I recovered my blades with vinyl sign material. You can usually get enough in your favorite color to cover several sets of blades out of the scrap bin at your local sign shop for little or no money especially if you take your helicopter in and show it to the guys at the shop.


Great idea and advice Bob. It MUST last a hell of a lot longer than the cheezy shrink wrap woodies come wiht!!

Nice tips, thanks for sharing.

[chilipepper]

Thanks for the great tips and information guys! I'll have to do a little better damage assessment and make a decision then. I see if a guy values your time it probably is worth the $$ to just get CF ones and deal with it when you crash. By the time you epoxy the grips, re-shrink the covering and balance the woodies you easily have an hour or two into it. Then if you have to deal with the covering going bad over time and doing most of the above all over with the addition of recovering them.... Hmmm the cash for the CF blades that you pull out of the box, bolt on and go are sounding like a pretty hot deal.

I kind of feel like the great zen-master should be looking down on me and saying "ahh you learn quickly young grasshopper!" :D

Thanks again!

[capebob]

Carbon fiber blades are, of course, the best. But, you can buy ~ three sets of woodies for the price of one set of CFs. Unless your pockets are deep, I suggest that you stick with woodies until you're sure you have passed the dumb thumb a week stage. Once you have covered your woodies with vinyl they will last until your next crash or your graduation to the dumb thumb only rarely stage whichever comes first. BTW you will never ever graduate from that stage. :lol:

Bob

[johndale]

What brand of blades were you flying at the time :idea: ? I had this problem way back when I used Mavvic Blades :bomb: . I had the woofs and puffs bad and I was told it was my ships and not their blades. But when I put Thunder tigers back on the problems went away and never returned :noteworthy . The woodies would inflate on oneside or both blades and it sounded and looked VERY BAD :shock: . The guy at the time who was helping me to learn too fly was flying the ship at the time it last did it and recovered it with no damageto the ship and we looked at the blades and could never find any holes for air to get inside to inflate them.After the inspection we had made the blades do it over again and on the other woodies I had and never to fly them again :roll: . I thought it was me causing the crashs. But it was the blades.

[chilipepper]

I actually was flying the TT woodies when it happened. I was having troubles with the Mavrikk ones doing pretty much exactly as you said and that is why I picked up the TT ones. I think i'm going to trash this set at this point because I noticed by the root of the other blade there is a crack in the wood. The crack extends to the screw hole.... so that one is not going back on. (yes I did have the blade roots epoxied on) Either way I'll need another set. Not sure if the crack was a cause or effect. As for the covering I must have just nicked it somewhere along the way and eventually air worked its way under and poof!

Thanks again for the advice!

[johndale]

I hope everything works out and no more woof and poof. I am now into CF and loving them. I am not a 3Der but just enjoy to fly these Helis. You know I have been flying the real ones since 1970 and these are more fun. Even when you get into trouble you walk away. The name of the game is too enjoy our hobby and have fun. Thanks to a great understanding wife during the learning curve.

[DebianDog]

You got to hit the woodies with a heat gun every now and again to keep them tight too...

[chilipepper]

Roughly how often does one need to reshrink these? I hit them with a heat gun about 30 flights or so ago. Just for kicks I turned the heat gun on them again and they did tighten up quite a bit. Is this something a person should do ever 5, 10, 50 flights??? Thanks once again for the advice!

[DebianDog]

I they look loose... I tighen them. I think it is weather/environment dependent on how often you "need" to.

[rcmike]

Some woodies use covering that has adhesive on the back instead of just relying on the shrinking to hold them on. I always had problems with the clear ones that don't have any adhesive on the back. A lot of the white ones have adhesive and I have never had one of those come loose. Of course it has been several years since I have used woodies. Once you go carbon you can never go back.

[chilipepper]

I switched to the mavrikk ones that I had and they worked nice for 2 flights (with the exception of a wierd whistling sound). When I landed the second flight and switched to normal mode boom they did it again. I may need to do a bit of tweaking on my throttle and pitch curves but it just shouldn't be a problem.

Well I gave up on the woodies for now and put a set of TT carbons on and they are really awesome! Very crisp and now the heli feels real precise!

Thanks again!