those modeltechs i owned were quite some time ago. today at the flying site a flying buddy told me that those modeltech arfs had improved over the last few years. he has had a few of them and he also told me that were really not that bad. so i'm putting my foot in my mouth. i ordered the hobby people sukhoi. but he did agree with me about the sportsman avaition arfs. he did not care for them either. he too had a hot knife .40 . he told me that after several flights the wing ribs started coming loose in the wing.
ORIGINAL: optech
Russell,
The Sukhoi actually looks pretty good. The only major thing that I'll have do something about is the bellypan piece is not the same color white as the rest of the plane so I'll probably repaint it. Cheap ARF covering is cheap ARF covering. There are things you can do to mitigate the problem (see below) but, in the end, what do you expect for <$100. If it was any more I would buy it as there are other better ARFs for the money.
As for Phoenix.... yeah they look nice but they are the heaviest ARFs I've ever built. Which I don't understand because they fall apart after a few flights at the field. I'm in the middle of repairing a SeeBee that the landing gear fell out of after a few landings. The wood is crap and falls apart at the slightest touch. I wouldn't even call it plywood. Everybody at my field thats had a Phoenix ended up hating it and this SeeBee is the last one I will buy.
Back to the cheap covering. I've been building airplanes for about 30years now and the first thing I usually do with a new ARF is go over the seems with clear epoxy paint or similar. If there is alot of small trim I'll paint over it with clear paint to keep it from coming up. I reach in with brushes and clear varnish (solvent, not water base varnish) all exposed wood I can acess. I repaint firewalls with fuel proof paint or a coat of varnish. All stuff I do when building because fuel WILL get underneath. The problem is the ARFs do not get, or at all in some cases, enough fuel proofing. Fuel and oil leaks under the seams (espescially around firewalls, engine bays, and wing saddles) and "poof", the covering comes off. You can see these differances when builder brings an ARF to the field and an ARFer brings an ARF to the field. Spend a little more time with the ARF and the coverings last just fine.
Mike