How difficult is it to replace painted covering?
A friend pulled an old '70s plane down from his attic and knowing the design had been an old favorite passed it into my hands. The Alley Cat was a nice intermediate low wing tricycle gear .40 size design by Ed Keck and was produced by Southern RC.
It is in reasonably good shape but does have a fuselage area that was repaired and primed but not finish painted, probably because the paint was a custom auto paint mix. The paint is the issue for two reason. Of course repainting the damaged area but the greater problem is weight.
When I picked up the wing, my first reaction was HOLY SMOKERS... this thing is not just heavy, it is really heavy.... the fuselage as well. It seemed to me that it ought to be about that heavy with the motor and radio gear. Checking the weight, it is 3lb 13oz less radio gear and engine.
My enthusiasm to do something with it was deflated. I've an old HB 40-PDP that would make it fly (heck, I remember the owner flying it)... but I remembered mine as a great flier and suspect that this plane is too heavy to fly well and thus not worth effort to restore to flight.
I don't of course know the exact process used to produce the finish. My memory of painting back then was to use a poly span type covering doped on and filled with dope and talk and then painted with K&B epoxy. What I suspect is that this was filled with a few layers of auto primer, and just got too heavy.
My question, has any one experienced a surprise and found it relatively easy to get the covering off of one of these old painted models? Has any one tried and been frustrated?