F86_SABRE

Hi at the moment I am making a mold of a plane and am covering it with litho aluminum which is 0.1mm thick (printer's aluminum). I have arrived at the stage of attaching the aluminum to a balsa fibarglassed fuselage. Its a lot of work and I do not wish to ruin it. I have already bought contact adhesive but that will not give me chance to adjust the aluminum correctly. What alternative methods one can use in order to have time to make the necessary adjustments to the aluminum in order to locate it properly.
Anybody has experience on this? I believe those that have tried it have gone the contact adhesive way but I am trying to see what options are available before committing to the task. I have been told that there are tapes that go in between the fiberglassed fuselage and the aluminum and is heat activated but I have never seen anything like that before.

Meanwhile I am enclosing some fotos.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks

Reuben

madmodelman

I have just discovered a new contact adhesive, it does not "grab" until you actually put pressure on it, just tried it laminating balsa/ply ribs together, it really does work well.

It's called Evostik Timebond, hope that helps,

Gary.

gadix

My Feedback: (2)

remove the resist coating from the aluminum foil!!!!
is it green or blue "emultion"?
this coating will react to heat and sun light, allthough it ment to work under laser.

(use to work for Kodak)

F86_SABRE

Hi Guys,

@ Gary, thanks for the information. I believe they stock EVOSTICK here. Have to check whether they stock Timebond so I have t look around. I still would have to experiment with it, if I am able to locate a source locally, since I need to bend and secure the edge of the litho.

@Gadi. I am cleaning the shiny side with pure alcohol in order to avoid any reaction with epoxy etc. Most of the backside, i.e. the printing side is usually grey in color. I do not know whether you are refering to this or not.

Thanks guys for your feedback. It is appreciated

Reuben

madmodelman

Reuben, if you get stuck let me know and I'll send a tube over to you,

Gary.

p.s. it sticks like st to a blanket!

F86_SABRE

Hi Gary,
Thanks for the offer. I am sure I should bump into it here one way or another. I will try it and see how it goes. Thanks again.

Reuben

HunkaJunk

The gray area is the blank, depending on what kind of plates they are, the gray coating is meant to be photochemically processed or laser engraved, after having an image put on it you can see it, usually either green or blue in color. I left a couple litho plates out in the sun and weather for almost a year and the gray coating never came off, I had planned on doing this same thing but I haven't got around to it yet.

F86_SABRE

Hi HJ,
Well the gray part is the side to which I intended to glue my plates on. The gray side will be attached to the fuselage whilst the shiny part will be the one which will be used for making the mold.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Reuben

invertmast

My Feedback: (23)

3m scotchweld 1300L. Its a contact adhesive we use for attaching deice boots on full scale kingairs, and what I use to attach my litho plates to my F14 plugs. Don't use igt sparingly around the edges. If you do, the litho will pull free after awhile. This goes with any contact adhesive (I have tried 3, the other 2 being cheap hardware store brands).

F86_SABRE

Here are some results

madmodelman

That's looking really good.

F86_SABRE

Hi Gary,
Thanks!
BTW I had found Timebond locally and that is what I am using. I am into my second 1 litre can
Sorry for not coming back here and let you know. Thanks for your support.

Regards

Reuben

madmodelman

That's ok Reuben, glad to be of help, I thought it may be ideal for that particular purpose, it's nice to see it works for you,
Gary.

F86_SABRE

Yes it does Gary. Much obliged.

Reuben

Tom Verstappen

HI Reuben,

That looks fantastic!!!!
Great job!!!

Tom

tenacious101010

My Feedback: (97)

Your project looks great, I am glad to see another aluminum skinned project in the works. I hope you post some images of it when you are done. I am also building a 1/5 scale BT-13 with aluminum sheeting for the covering. I have found that canopy glue works great. The worst part is that it takes forever to dry. A minimum of 12 hours, sometimes longer. I tried some contact cement, but I think the canopy glue is far superior in securing the aluminum and it giveas time to move the sheeting around to get it where you want it.
Denny

F86_SABRE

I have made some more progress...take a look.

Reuben

F86_SABRE

Some more

F86_SABRE

oops...fotos fell through

tenacious101010

My Feedback: (97)

Really nice work! How did you do the raised rib stiffners? I have to do a few of them on my project. Its one of the few things I havent experimented with yet. Heres a couple pics of what I have so far on mine.
Denny

F86_SABRE

Hi Denny,

I am using a cut-down screwdriver with the tip rounded. I am pressing them down one by one with the aid of a hammer on a melamine board. A friend of mine made me a press were I could make around 30 rivets in one go. I had used it at the bottom of the fuselage but changed my mind in using it as it would not tackle curves properly so I decided to go rivetting one by one. Longer route but once you get the hang of it then it did not matter much....I ended up enjoying the experience!
I am enclosing a photo of my earlier version of the rivet press as I had to have it modified by having extensions on both ends of the press so that the aluminum will remain straight on long runs. It was very comfortable as you could make things quite fast. Maybe with a bit of more modification we could have made it work. Still I have enjoyed the learning experience and the fun. BTW I am going through the trouble of cladding the plane in aluminum and rivetting it in the process so that I will make a fiberglass mold out of it. I did not wish to do all the work to have it ruined by wrong handling as the aluminum is quite soft and thin. Infact, one can easily dent it with finger nails. I already had a similar experience when I built a balsa/ply Ziroli Grumman Panther only to realise that the nose had a number of nail impressions in the fuselage through wrong handling. So I wanted to go the fiberglass way thereby avoiding similar experience.

Reuben

F86_SABRE

By the way, your plane looks very nice. Your work is astounding. I like it....how long have you been at it ?

Reuben

tenacious101010

My Feedback: (97)

Thanks Reuben. I started on the project about a year ago, but just two months ago decided to cover it with aluminum sheeting. I am using a small punch and hammer to do my rivets. The ridges on your horizontal stabs are what I was curious about. I only have a few of them I need to make on my project. How thick is the sheeting you are using? I am using .008 thick for most sheeting and for the fillets and places where I have to make compound curves, I use .020 thick.

Heres a link to the build here on RCU in case youre interested.
Denny



http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_89...tm.htm#8903372

cmjets

Hello Reuben:

Congrats for that great job.

In the end I am sure will be like the real plane.

Best regards from Spain.

Carlos.
________________________
http://cmjets.blogspot.com/

Bundubasher

Guys, most amazing jobs you got there..... one of a kind!

How do you install the receiver (and what type) to overcome the signal screening effect of aluminium?

Best of luck


Bundu