The only tools you need are a pair of pliers and a pair of diagonal cutting pliers as shown in the pictures. Start by making a bend in the piece of wire. You'll cut it down later, but it's easier to make the original bend with a longer piece.
Squeeze the bend tighter with your fingers and then with the pliers. When the bend is tight trim the end 1/4" long as shown.
Make a second bend 1 3/4" away from the end of the rod and trim the bent end 1/4" long. Tack the doubled-over end to the carbon rod so that the the rod stick out about 1/4" beyond the end of the metal.
Wrap the joint securely with regular cotton sewing thread and soak it with thin CA glue. Using thin CA here will let the glue penetrate all the way through the threads so you get a nice bond between the threads and the carbon rod. Medium or thick CA will just sit on the surface and look nice but will result in a lousy joint. However -- after the joint is fully soaked and dried, you can coat it with some medium CA which will make it look nice and shiny (:-)
Make sure that the thread is 100% cotton since it soaks up the glue and sticks very well. Nylon thread and other fancy modern things are very much inferior for this use.
To attach this to the servo horn or the control horn, insert the metal end through the hole and then gently pull up the carbon rod and flip it over the metal end. The two pieces will not hold each other securely in position but still allow you to disconnect them very quickly.
Attach a metal end to both ends of each pushrod. To join the two pieces slip a piece of heatshrink over the overlapped ends and heat the tubing to hold things in place.
You can mix and match any diameter rods for this type of use. If using thin rods you can make the pushrod stiffer simply by increasing the length of the overlapping middle part.
For use on LiteSticks and other planes in the same weight class (5-8 ozs) I find that .050" rods with 2"-3" overlap in the middle work very nicely. Use whatever size music wire fits snugly in the holes in the servo output arm. It's ok to change the length of both the wire piece and the carbon end to provide sufficient security / stiffness for your application.
Also, for an even more secure and compact assembly, you can make either or both ends into Z-ends to make sure they won't pull out accidentally in larger / heavier aircraft or other more demanding applications.
Go to NYBLIMP homepage