Tundra Aircraft Skis

thingiverse

The skis fit perfectly onto the undercarriage legs of my Durafly Tundra RC plane. I removed the original wheels and slid the skis into place, securing them with a collet on the axle to prevent them from coming off. To hold the ski tips high, I used a rubber band looped around the forward hook, the undercarriage leg, and back to the hook. This allows them to lie flat under the weight of the model and gives them movement over rougher snow terrain. Experimenting will be necessary to get the correct tension of the rubber band. The ski has an axle hole close to the correct size but this will need cleaning out with a suitable drill bit before fitting. The forward hook has a built-in support that needs cutting to allow it to be used. It also has a slot for the upright part of the undercarriage leg, allowing forward and backward movement making the skis right and left handed. The right-hand ski was drawn up in Fusion 360 as a right-hand version. As Fusion 360 outputs a .stl file on its side, I loaded the file into Cura to turn it 90 degrees to lie flat, then turned it 90 degrees around to get the length of the ski on the Y axis. It just fits my 3D printer this way. The printer is set up for a layer height of 0.2mm with 100% fill. It may be possible to have a lower fill, maybe 75% or less, but I wanted a solid ski. The left-hand ski can be produced by simply mirroring the right-hand ski in Cura, with the length of the ski on the Y axis. With flat skis produced, the next step is to curve the front of both of them upwards. I cut a suitably sized block of wood to a ski shape and carefully heated the front of the ski with a heat gun (the sort used for shrinking iron-on covering for models). It softens easily and can be pressed into shape on the wooden former, once it has cooled, the ski is complete. You might manage without a former but it's easier to get identical shapes with one. Roll on the snowy weather! Update 28/2/17 I had a request to split the ski so it could be printed on a smaller bed printer. I've done this and added a central 6mm hole and two 1.5mm holes, so when glued together, a 6mm central dowel of wood, carbon, or ali can be glued in to strengthen it along with maybe 1.5mm carbon or piano wire on the outer edges. The holes will probably need drilling out to the correct diameter once printed. I use solvent glue for PLA quite successfully (Solvent Weld Cement available from model shops in the UK). Again, you'll need to produce a left and right-hand version. Print Settings: * Rafts: No * Supports: No * Resolution: 0.2mm * Infill: 100% * Notes: A support is included for the forward hook