Undercarriage

Looking at my funfly last night (in the hanger collecting dust) and noticed that the undercarriage wheel arm on the one side is slightly twisted, putting the left wheel out of alignment - when I land, (not so much on take off) the model tends to veer to the right so want to straightren it out a bit if I can.
As its undercarriage wire, it is strong and springy and doesnt want to bend cold, Im worried that if I heat it it may become brittle and snap. anyone got any ideas? or should heating it up do the trick?

Heating it to red heat then air cooling (as slowly as possible) will remove the temper from the wire, allowing it to be bent easier. However, it will need re hardening and re-tempering to restore the springyness. That can be done by heating to red heat again, and quenching in oil or water. Then, re heat to approx 250-300°C (the surface will turn various colours, when it gets to dark blue, thats the temperature you want). then leave to cool. You can then polish the surface back, and it should be as good as new.

Bending without doing this, risks fracturing the wire.

(when you harden something by heating to cherry red, then quenching, what you are doing is allowing iron carbide to form in solution with the rest of the iron, then "freezing" it in place. Tempering then removes a certain amount of this iron carbide, just enough to remove the right amount of hardness, and restore the springyness that is required)

Anyway, I would be surprised if you could see the model veering to the left when you land it near Rhuddlan in a field...

Andy

you could just put an ally or carbon one on, job done, probably have an ally one you can have.

Use the rudder - its free

Brute force and ignorance! That's how I do it!

For straightening out undercarriage that should be fine. Depending on the wire thickness suitable size pliers would probably be all you need. For bigger stuff a vice is useful. For a Funfly pliers should be all thats needed

Cheers chaps. I'm a brute force type of guy, so will give that a crack, if I have no joy with that, I will just blame all my poor landings on a twisted undercarriage! Don't fancy all this heating and reheating melarky!

Why not learn to land gently? saves all that hassle