Mitch,

March 30th... what's up with that primer coat!?

Have you managed to get any paint time in?

David.

David,

Every once in a while, when the stars align, I take one more step forward. Right now, the white basecoat is on, and I have applied one blue stripe on the fuselage top.

If I had chosen to go the monokote route, this airplane would have been flying for quite some time now.

Oh well.

Mitch

I got very frustrated with the paint job on this plane and put it down for quite a while. They are now paving our runway (Chapin Field in Wichita) and I want to christen it with a plane that can appreciate it.

So I just sucked it up and got it done even though the paint job still has issues.

I'll fix it later if she behaves.

Maiden will be tomorrow if the weather permits. The maiden will be at Afton. They aren't finished with the runway at Chapin yet.

I still have to adjust the nosewheel to get the proper angle on the ground. Any advice? Level?

I may ask this question in a new thread.

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Very nice Curare! Congratulations.<div>
</div><div>Chino</div>

Thank You Chino.

Hopefully it will serve me well next year. It will probably look better with a tuned pipe as well.

Great job!! Fly well and enjoy.

Gene

Thanks Gene!

Weather for tomorrow is 41 degrees, sunny skies, and 7mph wind from the north.

I think we are go for a maiden!

Mitch

I'll post results.

I think you might be too picky. The pictures look GREAT! (I know, up close they look different). Good luck with the flight. Mine has been sitting on the bench too for over a year. I got stuck on the wing fairings and then got distracted by the family....

Thanks Peter.

The main problem was that the paint didn't adhere well to the primer. When pulling off masking tape, little flecks of the paint would come off with it revealing the primer below. This only happened in three places, but it makes me worry that I'll have issues in service.

I also had issues with paint getting under the mask.

I know that these issues have pretty easy solutions, I just need to learn how to paint right the first time so I don't have to rework.

Still go for the maiden flight today. Lake Afton (nearest paved runway) is about forty miles from here so I'll make it worth my while and bring my Deception as well.

nice plane! wiping down surfaces with reducer just prior to spraying can help, with adhesion, using 3m ultra thin masking tape can help as well, to prevent paint bleed i use a mist coat of clear first along all mask lines, then i apply the color, the clear prevents the color seeping.

Thank you. I'll try these fixes next time. Even with these problems, the quality of the finish blows Monokote away. The plane is so much more durable with the fiberglass/polycryllic coating. Minimizes the hangar rash that starts to show up when you start moving the plane in and out of the house.

Empty Weight (after defueling) = 7.5 lbs.


Maiden flight went OK. Accelerated nicely, but steering angle was a little off causing me to head for the grass. Had plenty of speed to rotate and fly away before getting to the grass. I should have been on the steering harder. Climbed great. Trim was pretty far off on pitch. Needed about five "beeps" to get in trim. The trailing edge of the elevator moved up about 1/32 inch from the faired position. Roll trim was only slightly off, requiring two "beeps". Surfaces still look faired. Throttle servo went bad and caused a dead-stick. This was a well-used standard servo. I'll go buy a new decent servo tomorrow.

The plane is fast and feels light and tracks like it's on rails.

Congratulations on the completion and maiden of your Curare, and thanks for posting the pictures!

It would be great to see a video of a flight...

Best regards,

George

Great news!!

Congratulations!<div>Did you use the flaps for landing?</div>

Nope. The flight only lasted about five minutes until I had the throttle servo problems. My plan was to put the flaps down at altitude to see how much elevator mix I needed. Since I never got to that, I didn't trust the flaps.

I haven't tried the gear yet either.

Still plenty to do.

George: I'll try to get a video, but it may take awhile since now everything defers to the weather. We just happened to get a nice, weekend day today.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; " class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; " lang="EN-US"><font size="2">Ok, I&acute;m building a Curare and II have some concerns about the spoiler-flaps. Please let me know please how they work.
<o></o></font></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; " class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; " lang="EN-US"><font size="2">Thank you!</font><span style="font-size: 7pt;"><o></o></span></span></p>

Mitch,

nice to see your Curare in its colours - well done!

It sounds like there were some compatibility problems between the primer and paint. What kind of stuff where you using? Is the model cleared or did you use fuel proof paint (e.g., Dope)?

I found that even using thin green painters tape was sufficient to produce some pretty good lines. I think the trick to this (also as suggested above with the clear) is to make sure the first coat of paint, particularly near the tape, is just "misted" so that it can't flow. If building the paint up in thin coats, the tape did a decent job provided it was well seated prior to painting. The expensive 3M blue vinyl tape is excellent with curves and gives impeccable clean separation. It does stick pretty well though so its particularly important to pull it back on itself and away from the painted area - slowly...

So how's the D40 in the air!? Any notable differences between the 40 and 60 size?

David.

Hey David,

The paint is LustreKote over Duplicolor Filler/Primer. Now I know, not a good mix.

I'll try these tips next time.

The D40 is a dream. It's way faster than the D60. The OS .55 AX in front really pulls it. It turns well and slows down for landing better than the 60. I would highly recommend it to anyone. It's especially nice when space in the car/truck is limited.

The only issue is with the size. I've gotten used to flying 60 size aircraft and it's sometimes a shock how small it can get on big maneuvers. I'm getting used to it.

Mitch

I’ve used Dupli-Color Filler Primer – Grey 26916 32101 a number of times and it works great. I use the grey just as a filler and then put down the required LusterKote primer as the final prime coats before the color coats. The base under the primer was polyester fiberglass resin and cloth. The required LusterKote primer doesn’t work very well as a primer so that why I start with the Dupli-Color. Without the white LusterKote primer the colors will not be correct.

That's just what I did, except I used polycrylic instead of resin.

Maybe it was because I didn't sand the last shot of duplicolor primer?

Either that or the tape was too aggressive/I didn't peel it off right.