BykrDan

Hi;

I'll be ready to start the tissue covering job on this "Z" pretty soon, but I have a question...

The color scheme is yellow and black - I have yellow tissue, and was planning on painting the black portion.

I imagine I should shrink the tissue (spray-on water/alcohol mix) before painting? Or will the moisture from the paint sufficiently shrink the painted parts?

How do you handle it?

Thanks!
Dan.

David Cutler

When I used to use tissue to cover models, I used colored cellulose dope over a thinned clear dope surface.

After covering, spray with water and let dry to tighten the tissue, then apply a thinned coat of clear dope. This will make the tissue permanently tight, then apply as many slightly thinned colored coats as is necessary to get a solid color.

When covering, remember the tissue has a 'lay' to it. It tears easier in one direction than the other, and the easy tear direction should be across the smaller dimension of the part you are covering (that is, at 90 degrees to the length of the fuselage, and across the chord of the wing) so that the 'grain' runs parallel to the longer length.

-David C.

BykrDan

Thanks for the tips - I'm trying to avoid using the dope, but by substituting the spray paint, I think I know what to do now...

I'm just waiting for the flight pack to arrive now, so I can finish up the construction details...

Thanks,
Dan.

Mike Taylor

My Feedback: (1)

Dan,

Check out Small Flying Arts; they're stick and tissue guys. Check the discussions under 'Covering materials & techniques'... Talks about adhesives, Krylon vs. dope, etc.

BykrDan

Thank you - I finally found the "discussions" page! Don't know how I kept missing that...

Still waiting on the flight pack.

Mike Taylor

My Feedback: (1)

Dan,

If the 'flight pack' you're waiting on is a Cirrus MJ, the wait is about over. I got mine (finally!) Tuesday.

One thing we've found that you need to do is add a switch between the battery and ESC. The systems like the switch better than the crackle that comes from pushing plugs together. PLugging the battery in caused soe odd behavior in the servos (like running over 90 degrees and stopping/stalling). Tourning the power on repeatedly with a switch, however, did not cause this to happen, and the servos moved back around and started to work as normal after that.

FWIW, the new crop of servos turning up in the flight packs are much better than the previous test run of servos. The ones I got at least are much smoother and less jittery than the first ones we saw.

BykrDan

For the Bee, I'm waiting on the good old RFFS-100 with remote actuators (They're still not here!).

I'd have preferred real servos, but light and slow (for my office lobby) is the goal here.

I do, however, have a plan in mind for the Cirrus MJ - while looking for motor oil the other day, I picked up a Cox Viper at WalMart. I couldn't pass it up! It leapt off the shelf into my hands! It looks a little bigger than the Bee will be, so I think the MJ may be a good fit.

Mike Taylor

My Feedback: (1)

I think the Viper/MJ combo would be great. AUW weight 2 or 3 ounces. You will find lots of extra foam in the fuselage to mill away.

BykrDan

I took it out of the box last night for a peek (though I must promise myself not to touch it again until all my other projects are DONE!)

I think it's a beautiful piece of work for less than fifteen dollars! I may just leave this one free-flight for a while before I go chopping into it (I was sort of scoping out a good access path into the fuse). This one is white, except for the wings and tail, but I'm thinking of painting it all silver and dressing it up like a proper P-51.

Mike Taylor

My Feedback: (1)

Dan,

Did the RFFS get there yet? Have you done anything more with the project?

BykrDan

Hi Mike;

It sure did! And it looks top-notch, too. I was surprised how big the actuators really are, but that's okay - there's plenty of room in that round fuse.

Which project did you mean, the Viper, or the Bee? I'm keeping my hands off the Viper until the Bee is finished, but the Bee is moving right along. Now that the battery's here and I know it's a perfect fit in the fuse, I've finished the belly pan under the wings (I was keeping it open, just in case) and I'm ready to start tissuing the wings and installing actuators. I also just finished up a nice pair of detachable foam wheel pants and landing gear (see my earlier post about "Protecting foam").

Thanks for asking!
Dan.

It's "building season" here in Ohio. How about California?

Mike Taylor

My Feedback: (1)

Dan,

It's always 'building season' here, mainly because its always flying (and crashing) season...

Heres a couple of hints at what I've got on the board right now...

BykrDan

Beautiful work! I can only dream about a covering job that nice (I like those wheels, too). Looks like you're pretty near completion...

My tissuing could have started off better, but it may look better after I shrink it up a bit and paint it. I used the water/glue mixture and I think I watered down the glue too much - as the tissue shrank, it pulled up around the edges. I tacked them back down with undiluted glue, so the wings are back on track now.

The wheel pants came out fairly nice, although I think they "grew" between the drawing board and the workbench - I'm going to have to put one heck of a skid on the back to get the wheels to touch the ground before the pants...

Mike Taylor

My Feedback: (1)

I got farther along in construction. The tissue is slack because these were taken between rain showers and its quite humid. All the covering is tissue with home-made decals for all the markings. The iron crosses on the top wing are bigger than is eay to handle.

The dragon was made from a graphic that was photographed from a book, and massaged in a couple of graphics programs. The tissue is sprayed with Krylon Clear acrylic.

BykrDan

The Albatross is looking great! Are the decals inkjet on tissue paper? I was going to paint on my "4" and "NR77V", but I may have to rethink that now. Yours certainly came out nice.

I am held up again! I was bench testing my RFFS-100 to make sure I had the actuators spaced about right to get the proper throw (and make sure everything works) and it's not working for me.

The motor control works fine, but I get no response from the rudder, and the elevator deflects fully in one direction and stays there. It sounds like it's responding, as the pitch of the buzz that it makes changes when I move the stick, but the actuator arm never moves.

For testing, I connected it to two-LiPolymer cells - I think I fried it! I'm going to call them and see if they can fix it.

I didn't want to work on the covering until I had the actuators inside. I didn't want to mount them inside until I was sure they were spaced about right. I can't test their spacing without the receiver, so I guess I'm taking a break!

D.

Mike Taylor

My Feedback: (1)

The RFFS runs on 1 cell with a max voltage of 5 volts. There is a board that you can add to the RFFS that lets you run it on two cell and get more voltage to the motor from [link=http://users.joplin.com/~bselman/]Bob selman's site[/link]. The two cell board does improve the power you can get from an M-20 or N-20. Two cells may have toasted it...

The decals are inkjet printed decal paper from [link=http://decalpaper.com/]DecalPaper[/link]. You have to spray the dried image with Krylor clear before you apply them to keep the ink from running. They work good, but large ones are hard to work with, especially over tissue. The smaller ones worked fine. They are much easier to use on foam.

Mike Taylor

My Feedback: (1)

Here's shot I took last night. I really like the first picture...

BykrDan

That plane is turning out beautiful. Is this going to be primarily an indoor plane?

By the way, I forgot to ask earlier - I recognize the receiver, but what kind of servos are those? They look specifically designed for a pull-pull setup. That's not the MJ, is it?

I painted my wheel pants tonight after a little spackling. For their size, they look great!

Mike Taylor

My Feedback: (1)

The gear is a micro joule receiver, 2 Falcon 1.7 gram servos (pull-pull or push-pull), 1 mj servo for aileron control, mj ESC with shortened wires and lightened plug, charging system & switch, 2 x 170 lipolys, and N-20 w/4:1 Kenway gears. A few more touches and its ready to fly. I would prefer to fly this one indoors just to keep from shearing the LG off on gravel or grass...

BykrDan

I didn't realize Falcon's were only 1.7 grams. I may have to give those another look, although I have a used RFFS-100 in the works now.

What kind of prop are you using? It doesn't look like a U-80.

I may have to go with a larger prop. The U-80 is barely clearing the cowl.

Mike Taylor

My Feedback: (1)

The motor is an N-20 Kenway 4:1 gears with 12 cm plastic prop from Bob Selman, and it weighs almost twice what a KP-00 weighs. The KP-00 motor will fit the M-20 Kenway gearbox (also 4:1) and turn a 10 cm plastic; that will give you lower rpms but a bigger diamater prop. The RFFS will also drive the N-20 sized motor I have in the Albatross.