updated 3 MAY 02
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Braiding a 6 Strand Rubber Motor Danny Maslowicz in Australia drew up these sketches about how to braid a 6 strand motor. For those who wonder, braiding is done to allow a longer motor to be used in the model by taking up the extra length. Ideally, braiding can make the motor fit between the prop hook and rear peg without any extraneous knots - the ones that always seem to form at the back end of the motor and spoil the glide! Braiding is done by making up a motor twice as long as usual with half the strands - very easy if you work with multiples of 4 strands, but a 6 strand motor requires a bit of extra work. Begin by laying out a new motor - our 10 gram motor is about 10' - 12' long:
Tie loops at each end. One way to achieve a non-slip knot is to apply a tiny droplet of CA glue to the tag end of the knot. There are also some very fancy fisherman's knots that can work well.
Apply rubber lube now as it will facilitate the braiding, and arrange the motor like this:
Wind half of the motor first. Start with 50 turns - the turn count here is what determines the finished length of the motor and you may have to do this over to get it just right, with more or less turns.
Wind the other half the same number of turns:
With the motor still anchored, bring the ends together and attach to the prop hook, a Crockett hook, or maybe a bobbin, tho I haven't seen anyone use those for years. Let the anchored end go and the motor will braid itself! It won't look very neat at this point because there will be some funny looking knots, but a bit of hand work will arrange things evenly.
Now you can check the length. For a P-30, you'll want the unwound motor to just allow the freewheel catch to release when the motor runs down. Now that you've seen these drawings, you can realize that use of a motor with 4, 8, 12, 16 etc strands means that you won't need to tie loops at the ends of the strand. Thank you Danny!
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