Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

I'm doing the prep work on my Swoose so I can get it painted. One of the things I had to do before painting was attach the canopy. The canopy is just a shaped flat piece of plastic I had cut to shape and size to fit the plane then it wraps around the fuse. I have always used the commercially manufactured canopy glues but they often don't hold all that well. During my Swoose build I followed another thread of the Swoose built by Lou Mclancon {spelling} and he was building a enlarged swoose. He used Contact Cement. I have never tried to glue down a canopy with contact cement but decided to give it a try. I just marked the canopy with a pen then used a small brush to put the CM onto the fuse then brushed some onto the plastic canopy. I had already made up tick marks to make sure I got the canopy on exactly where I wanted it to go, I have used a lot of contact cement over the years and know, once you touch the two parts together they stick right away. I got the plastic down onto the wood and just ran my fingers around the glued area. The next day there is no way this glue is ever going to come loose. Good idea and sticks like it was welded on. The canopy is tinted with Ritt Dye and the glue shows through very little. I will be painting around the glued area anyway. Give the Contact Cement a try!!

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Thanks for the head's up Gene

bikerbc

Did you use the latex water base type GB or the stinky type? Thanks

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

The heavy stick. You have to mark the exact spots you want to glue the plastic to and hit the marks with the first shot or you could be in trouble. They touch and there is no sliding into place. I think it would work great for the standard shaped canopy very well. I just used my fingers to add some pressure around the glued sections and that was it. I then used some thinned down filler and blended the lip of the plastic even with the fuse. Next day I used fine sand paper to blend it in so it's completely smooth and even, when I put on the paint you shouldn't see where the canopy and fuse blend. I'll find out this weekend when I lay down the first color of paint. I did pre-paint the fuse under where the canopy fit, now I decided that area shouldn't be blue but yellow. Klass Kote doesn't care what you paint with it so I will paing the plastic around the area where the plastic meets the fuse so you shouldn't see it. I'm going to give the air brush a try again and see if I can't improve my painting technique. I have four colors to use this time and I'm looking to do something different. For me anyway. Lou's paint job on his big swoose inspired me. I just finished making the plug for the cowl too so as soon as I get the epoxy I will be glassing up a couple of those for both planes too. I'm building a new plane and trying to finish another at the same time.
I was wanting to get this Swoose finished to take to AZ for the big float fly at Havasu but I was held up on buying the one color of paint needed. If it flies I will take it over next year.

bikerbc

Thanks GB...I have done a fair amount of work with contact cement..there are a few tricks that help you place your pieces together . One is to put wax paper down between the two and slide it out when you have everything lined up..The paper will not stick if the contact cement is dry...One other way is to place thin sticks down over the one half and hold them in place with tape then place your second part down over top and line everything up.. Start sliding the sticks out one at a time and pushing down tacking the two pieces together...I hope you can make sense of this....You probably already know these ways and maybe better ways...Cheers

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

Thanks and no I didn't know the tricks. I use contact cement for a lot of things but until I read Lou's build thread the thought of using it as a canopy glue never crossed my mind. I have always just used standard old canopy glue and tape. If done correctly this is much better and stronger. If not done correctly I can see a bunch of problems and a big mess. I lined everything out and used a small paint brush to lay the glue down with so it was nice and neat, unlike my usual work and have been very pleased with how well it has worked out.
For the cowls a friend wrote me and reminded me about just using a soda bottle and heat gun over the plug to make the cowls. I have done that for making canopy's but never a cowl. I'm going to try it but I worry about the heat melting the foam plug, it's pretty big. I once melted the foam plug when using regular resin to lay up the glass, the heat of the resin curing caused a big problem. When I made up plastic canopies I made wood plugs so there was no problem. Melting/shrinking the plastic instead of doing a normal glass job would be like hitting the easy button as long as the plug doesn't melt. Worth a try though. This stuff keeps me out of the bars and strip clubs so the wife is all for trying it! Not too much work if I have to make a new plug.

bikerbc

Yup me too..This hobby dosent save me any money but it does keep me out of a lot of other mischief...I really love it....

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

Great tip!!!


david

karolh

Never gave using contact cement a thought except for househole jobs, will do so now. Thanks for sharing GB.

Karol

bikerbc

I use the water base contact for wing skins all the time...It works great...You cant use the other stuff cause it melts the foam...The water base might work okay for your canopy idea too because it paints on easier...Regular contact gets kind of stringy and is hard to paint ..I have always had a hard time with canopy's and often use #0 x 1/4" screws to hold them on....I like this contact idea even better than canopy glue....I am going to give it a try next time I have a canopy to do...Good thinkin Gene... HummmmI was just thinking maybe to get a nice strait line when you are painting on the contact you could run a strip of masking tape on and pull it off after the contact drys...Just a thought....

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

I just used a fine point pen to mark the canopy and the area around it where I wanted to put the glue, used a soft artist paint brush to apply the glue. Alcohol removed the lines. Just the lines to the wood and the plastic, very easy. Once it was set up I filled the lip around the plastic with thinned down wood filler and sanded flush so the canopy flows seamless into the fuse. As you can see, I painted the area where the canopy is mounted but with the 4 colors I have I'm still debating if I will still use the blue or not around the canopy? I will paint around the canopy around the area of the inside fuse. The two part epoxy paint is very easy to work with too and covers plastic as well as wood. I love working with the epoxy paints and hope my skills with an air brush have improved. I want to make this plane as colorful as I can but still be able to see it in the air. For that I need to use as much yellow as I can. Being color blind, to me the red and orange will just blend in as one color but I hope the blue will be easy for me to see with the yellow? Being a float plane I don't think it will mater or not with the big floats hanging down and it really isn't a stunt plane so I see no problems. With the side skirts on it the plane has a bunch of side area too. This should be fun!!

VincentJ

GB- Nice Job on the canopy... I love using Klass Kote epoxy paint as well, in my opinion there is no better paint, lesser expensive yes! Good luck am looking forward to seeing it completed.

Zor

Hi,

I will likely get reproaches for this one.

Why bother gluing canopies ?

Canopies are supposed to open.

Why not copy or imitate full size airplane of a similar appearance even if the model is not a scale of a full size.

OUCH . . . guys . . . do not hit me so hard .. .. .

LOL

Zor