On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:04:57 -0700, Frank Whiteley wrote:


www.mcmaster.com for felt. Use the synthetic 1/8 or 3/16. 1/8 is
plenty thick for glass ships, but you might want 3/16 for wood

Frank Whiteley

Both the wing and tail dollys that came with my Libelle are lined with
6 mm (1/4") thick carpet. That works pretty well. The wing dolly has a
light frame made from steel strap on the underside to support the
struts. The main strut is a T piece welded from tube and with an old
bicycle fork welded on the end to take an ordinary 16" cycle wheel. The
cross bar of the T pivots near the trailing edge of the wing cuff. There's
a light gas strut running from the top of the fork to a pivot near the LE
of the cuff for suspension. Its 20 mm (3/4") in diameter and about 500 mm
(18") long. Its off a car body - supported a BMW's trunk lid at a guess.

One word of warning: DON'T build up the swivel wheel platform under your
tail dolly with car body filler and try gluing the wheel mount to it. The
tow bar applies a lot of force to the wheel, especially if you're braking.
If it sheers off you *will* wreck your rudder when it hits the back of
your car. I've seen that happen and analysed the dolly failure afterwards:
that dolly was an accident waiting to happen.

Better to build up the platform from laminated up 6 mm ply. Use
at least 4.5 mm (3/16" bolts to attach the wheel to the ply assembly and
both epoxy and more bolts to attach the ply to the fuselage cuff.
Finishing the job with one layer of 100 gsm (3 oz/yd) twill weave glass
cloth over the ply will weatherproof it and give a nice finish.

HTH

--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. |
org | Zappa fan & glider pilot