AMR GiantStick - Fuse Complete

The major components are now all assembled and the turtle deck is sheeted up. As you can see the backyard has suffered at the hands of aeroplane construction.


Here's the Giant Stick compared to my TMRC Pawnee still underconstruction. I can reassure you that the AMR kit is much, much, much easier and straight forward construction than the Pawnee. Did I mention it's easier?

Time to clean up the bench to assemble the stab, fin, elevators and rudder.

AMR GiantStick - Fuse top plate

Unfortunately preping for adhearing the top plate has shown up what appears to be an error with the parts.

At the read of the part instead of a tab on one side there is a recess as you can see in this pic.

If you put oneside up against a straight edge you can see all the tabs line up and the edge is parrallel.

When you flip the part over you can see where the tab should be there is a recess, and the edge of the part is not parrallel.

It's only one part, and really is fairly easy to repair by cutting the edge parrallel again. I'd say that there was just an error when the CAD drawings were done, or when they were transferred for CNC consumption.

No matter, we'll fix it up and send AMR a note.

Meanwhile, I've attached the rear top fuse stringers, the wing mounting blocks, fuse reinforcement and hatch lid.

AMR GiantStick - Fuse assembly continued

One thing I forgot to mention in last night's post, was to make sure that you orientate f7 the correct way. Not upside down as I have done. doh!



Now, before you start dry fitting your fuse sides, get the conical attachment on the dremel and remove any epoxy that has leaked around the edges of your laminated fuse sides. This not only makes for a better and stronger fitting structure but also makes attaching the sides much MUCH easier as everything just sits there in place.

Now that we have nice fitting fuse side, it's time to epoxy up one side to the fuse. This is a simple and straight forward process, but make sure that you have plenty of clamps around to ensure a tight fit.

There's a slight error in the manual that I got with my kit, in that FF6 is in the manual to be fitted after you have added both sides of the fuse. Don't do that! You need to put FF6 in place now with one of the sides still not attached. The reason being is that the ends of FF6 go through F8 and therefore once the sides have been attached you cannot physically fit the part through and you will have to detach one of the sides as I had to.

Now you can fit up the other fuse side, don't forget to fit up the radio tray and the former between F2 and F3 at the same time, makes for a much easier construction.

AMR GiantStick - Fuse assembly and formers

I've done the doubling on the fuse bottom and sides, and have laminated all the parts for the fuse that need to be laminated.

Today we attached the fuse formers, and undercarriage mounting assembly. The later fits together and self-aligns for the most part. Very strong assembly.

Everything slots into each other, it's really more like doing a giant 3d jigsaw puzzle than a traditional kit.

Once the formers are glued some 3/8" stock is glued to the base as you can see in the photo, it's just like all those FunFly 40's we build when I was a teenager.

AMR GiantStick - Joning fuse components and laminating parts

All the ply laser cutting is excellent, as you would expect from a modern kit. The timber is good quality overall, a few parts where a bit dodgy with the odd knot here and there, but nothing drastic.

One thing I did find ingenious, (having attempted importation of kits from overseas before) was that the guys at AMR have cut the fuse into 1/3 and 2/3 section to keep the box a reasonable size for postage. You can see in the lower part of this photo the bottom of the fuse and the finger join that has been cut into the front and rear peices. It's now a matter of joining the parts together then laying the fuse doubler (top left of frame) over the join. Very clever!


All the ply parts are cut from the same thickness material, which makes for efficient use of material I guess, which means there's lots of laminating to be done for the formers and other parts. I did read somewhere that laminated parts are stronger than the plain timber weight for weight, but I don't think that means anything for ply parts. In any case, it's no drama, just epoxy the parts together and go for it.

I like to laminate all the parts together before I start assembling the airframe so that I'm no held up in assembly waiting for parts to laminate.

The picture below shows the fuselage bottom and the firewall at the front.

AMR GiantStick - The Box

Here's the contents of the box, seems to be a very complete kit. All sheeting, and other stock required for the kit is included in the box, which means no more trips to the hobby shop! Wheels, hinges, control horns appear to be complete and included.


The manual is included, and spiral bound, good idea, makes it easy to leave on the building bench. The landing gear struts included are about 8mm thick aluminium, I'm not sure if the AMR guys were planning on carrier landings for this thing, but it sure is sturdy!

Santa has visited!

I have been very slack updating this with the project status's. Fortunately having some time off over the christmas break gives me time to get this done.

Santa found me and has delivered a brand spanking new AMR Giant Stick 50 kit. I've started construction and at this stage should have the fuse finished in the next two days or so.

For details checkout the AMR website - http://www.amr-rc.com/

Mike Morton is the local distributer here in Australia, you can get in touch with him via email at - amr.rc.kit@internode.net.au or you can call him on 0429-788-041. Mike's a great bloke, and very helpful, so if you're after a kit give him a bell.

I'll upload some more about the AMR kit once I get the photo's off the camera, but after one night of construction I have preped all the formers, and have started the actual fuse assembly. The quality of this kit is excellent, and all the gear is included, quality of the timber is good, and the price is right costing around the $550 mark for this 50cc-80cc size kit you can't go wrong.

I wanted to get an aircraft that was robust enough for aerotow, and something simple that didn't involve a heap of assembly everytime I flew it, and it had to be slow enough on landing to fit into our field at Thunderbirds. If you have a YouTube for the Giant Stick or checkout the amr website you'll see what I mean about slow landing.

I've built FunFly 40's, and "Ugly Sticks" since I was a teenager, the design is timeless and each generation seems to get something out of this simple design. In fact, I finished the last FunFly last year for my little brother.

This one is just a gigantic version of the same thing, but with flaps, and a big noisy gas engine at the front.

More soon.