Modifications to Radios
The gooseneck is another fitting which may eventually break.
Either the fitting on the boom or the one on the mast lets go
and must be fixed. The plastic section on the boom can be
repaired sometimes by wrapping some carbon fibre tow (or glass
cloth) around the curved section and bonded into place with
super glue. This glue sets faster and if sprayed with
accelerator from a model shop is almost instantaneous.
If the mast fitting breaks it needs replacing. The
simplest way is to cut a piece of aluminium sheet ~ 18/20 gauge
in the pattern on the left and bending the sides back around the
mast and the top and bottom sections forewards to form
horizontal flanges which can be drilled to accept the gooseneck
pivot pin. The aluminium side sections can be secured to
the mast with self tapping screws or small metal threads.
The section on the boom is a weak point anyway as the plastic
fitting is rigidly fixed to the boom. If there is any
movement in the boom vang then the plastic fitting must break!
To ease the stresses on this fitting I removed it (blue section)
from the end of the boom gently with pliers and reshaped it by
filing the inside top and bottom surfaces to a shallow angle
(grey sections) then refitted it to the boom with a small metal
thread. This allows the boom to move up and down through
small angles allowing the possibility of an adjustable boom vang
which allows much better control over the mainsail shape.
page
last edited on
08/09/2020
