Thanks Vincent.
Last night I finished the hatch and today I've moved on to the rest of the fuselage. Here's my progress so far...
Pics 1 and 2: The hatch, as I have lamented before in this thread, is a compound curved surface that is not only a headache to sheet but it also is a little tricky to cover.The trick is to cut the covering oversize, place it on the hatch, and with the iron on high (set to about 350F with a sock) run it down the center from aft forward to tack it down. Then, while pulling firmly, keep ironing away from the center and out towards the nose and the sides. I really can't emphasize enough that you need to
PULL the covering as you move outwards. I had to use sandbags to help hold it down for some areas. The reward for all this pulling and tugging is a firmly bonded, bubble free, smooth as paint, finish.
Pics 2 and 3: Next up was adding covering to areas around the perimeter to give the side covering something to attach to and to add a little more fuel-proofing. It's easier to it this way that it would be to try to seal these areas while covering the sides and bottom. Thinned epoxy will be used once it's all done to seal areas that aren't covered.
Pic 4: The turtle deck sheeting needs to be one piece of Monokote from the hatch to the tail. This will be tricky as the tail is solid shaped blocks and the turtle deck is open framing. Also, working with white in these areas demands a single, uninterrupted, piece because white Monokote is not totally opaque and an overlapping seam would really stand out.
Pic 5: So once cut to overall shape, which is fairly oversized because there's going to be a lot of pulling and tugging going on and I'll need enough material to grab hold of, I cut a slot just slightly wider than the vertical stab.
Pic 6: The end result worked out great. Took about 45 minutes of pulling and tugging and ironing but what I got was a perfectly shrunk piece with zero wrinkles and no bubbles. N-ice!
