bipe2

My Feedback: (2)

I will try to up load a pic of the area that I am asking about. I have read many posts on rcu about covering cubs one poster says that he covers the whole fuse and fin with one piece of material to eliminate seams How does he do that? I guess what I want to know is where will the seams be in the fin &fuse area? You can look at the pic and see what I mean.

Tall Paul

The full scale Cub is covered with one piece of fabric on each side. This provides a fairing for the base of the vertical into the fuselage. There's no abrupt change in the shape from the flat vertical to the fuselage.
Doing with MonoKote isn't easy, but it can be done with care in adhering the edges of the film to the top fuselage longeron and up the leading edge of the vertical, pulling out the wrinkles as they occur.

kdheath

I hope I can get this photo cropped and posted so it's clear. The fabric on a Cub makes a smooth curve over the top longeron up to the bottom rib of the fin. The horizontal tail moves in one piece on a LE jackscrew for trim, so there is a narrow gap between the inboard rib of the stab and the fuselage. To assemble one in scale fashion, you'd cover the fuselage and fin, and then add on the horizontal stab. The wire braces actually hold the whole thing together.

The PIPE

My Sig 1/6 scale J-3's fuse has three pieces of fabric on it...

Dear Bipe2:

The PIPE here once again...and my Sig Piper J-3, the Berkeley-originated version of it...which I turned into an L-4 Grasshopper...used THREE panels of fabric covering (the old Super Coverite, I think) covering its fuselage.

As usual, the BOTTOM surface of the fuselage (which IS flat on the J-3) is covered first. Then I covered first one side of the fuselage, by making the covering go from the lower longeron ALL the way up to the top CENTER stringer on the dorsal turledeck...which ALSO covered, with that same piece of covering, one side of the vertical fin, all the way around the outline (LE, top "rudder balance" area, and the hingespar) of the fin...then the other side of the fuse is covered in exactly the same way, resulting in a "top seam" that runs aft along the top "centered" edge of the fuselage, and up onto the LE of the fin, resulting in that SMOOTHLY covered "front of the fin root" you've seen SO many times in photos of full sized Piper J-3s!

I've been thinking of soon getting the Jim Pepino quarter scale plans for the Piper L-4 he's got, as it SEEMS...from a photo of someone's Pepino plans-built L-4 elsewhere here at RCU...that his design for the J-3 fuselage uses the full scale aircraft's framing layout (a MUST for my needs) just as the 1/6th scale Berkeley/Sig J-3, the GCBM 1/6 scale J-3 (at http://www.yolo.net/~jeaton/gems/6cub.htm ) and the Bob Nelitz 1/3rd scale J-3 ALL have!

So, Bipe2, that's how I covered a "J-3 in olive drab" for a very realistic appearance in the area of ITS vertical fin root area...which SHOULD be very much like how the full scale aircraft would have been covered...and I hope my telling you how I did it might help you out as well...!

Yours Sincerely,

The PIPE!

Strat2003

My Feedback: (1)

I've done the fabric fillets on two Cubs and was surprised how well it worked. I used Super Coverite both times and would probably hesitate to use a plastic covering because a considerable amount of shrinking was involved in getting it all nice and smooth.
I used three pieces (a bottom and two side/top pieces) both times. It's a little nerve wracking because that's a big piece of covering to throw away if you screw it up!

Tall Paul

It's best to work from the bottom up on that side/fin covering.. pulling the film/cloth over the edges of the upper longernon and fin leading edge is easiest when the lower side length is already ironed on.

bipe2

My Feedback: (2)

Thanks guys I think you have solved my problem.With the detailed how to by thepipe and others I can see how to go about.Now that I know where the seams go I think I will be fine. I will be using koverall & dope with ext. latex thinned about 20 percent water.This model is a 1/3 scale super cub from charles richerd plans That are VERY scale. I plan to power it with a quadra 52 I hope it will fly it. I have some construction pics at photo gallery use bipe2 to get in P.S. thanks for the photos also.