Category Archives: Experimental

Dayton Instructions

Experimental

I decided to start the instructions for the Dayton model plane since it seems the design is working out very well. It’s pretty easy to build and it seems to fly great.

The design isn’t final of course but I want to have people make them and see what else I can learn.

Here’s what I have for the instructions so far. It sure is faster this time around (compared to the Squirrel) since I have better tools (CAD software for instance).

This part is just the assembly instructions. Flying will be on the other side of the paper. So I have a whole page for that and some educational stuff.

  • What’s missing from the building?
  • Is it clear?
  • Do you know someone who would like to try this and give me feedback?

Update:

Okay here it is after a bit more editing. Gary has been eyeballing it and helping me make corrections and improvements.

 

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How to Improve Shipping Boxes

Experimental

As you may know shipping boxes for Squirrels are made from discarded cardboard. This is more fun that it looks. 🙂 First the boxes are cut. You can see the “Box-O-Matic” cutter in action on the environment page. The boxes are then glued together, stuffed, labelled and taped. Scrap from the cutting process are cut into strips and are used to make the new “flat boxes“. So even the recovered cardboard isn’t wasted.

Here’s the new “20 box”. I think it can hold as much as 30 Squirrels. This one is made in two parts. It needs a lot of improvement. I haven’t worked on it much since here is often a box I can re-use as-is for orders 20 and up. So most of the box making surrounds smaller orders. I’ve got a lot of box sizes and designs but there are four that come forward the most. They are called “The Flat”, “The Three (Zen)”, “The Ten” and “The Twenty”. Flat is used from 1-3 units, Three up to 10, Ten up to 15 and Twenty up to 30.

I’ve been using all sorts of glue. In the picture below is School Glue which is 15/gallon. Carpenter glue is about 25/gallon. I’m curious if I cut the carpenter glue with water if it would work as well.

Taping is the final stage. I use the clear packing tape and am keeping my eyes peeled for something cheaper or easier.

There might not be enough savings here to justify too much experiment but I’m curious if anybody else is making boxes. Any suggestions?

 

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