Rick

I have not gotten very far with the build. I will post some more pic's tonight when I get home. I have changed a few things like putting a conopy on her and beefing up the landing gear. She is not going to look like your typical stingray. BB and Mr Piper have been a lot of help in the project. Have you gotten your stringray yet? I would like to see how your project is coming along if you have.

Thanks

Rich

Here are some pic's of the plane I took tonight. As you can I have not gotten very far , but it is coming along. I hope to start covering the plane this weekend if the season does not get in the way if you know what I mean.

*GASP*.... Is that Monokote on the tail!? I've got my old timer bout all framed up. 1/2 of the wing to do yet and then ready to sand all the corners to shape. At the same time I'm trying to get a homie 30cc, husky 41cc and a ryobi 4-stroke ready to fly. If I only had a few more irons in the fire, like Christmas or something, umm... that would make it easier,

Mr Pipercub

Yes that is Monokote on the tail. I have been working with the cloth and I do like it, but it is going to be heavier than the Monokote. With the extra added weight of the 31cc Ryobi I decided to go with Monokote on this plane to try and keep the weight down as much as I can. I have already beefed up the landing gear because of the extra weight and that to add a few more onces. I know the power of the Ryobi is a little less than a 1.20 nitro weighting half as much. I have moved the 5 cell battery pack, receiver, and both rudder and elevator servos to the rear of the body and she is still going to be nose heavy. That is why I decide to use MonoKote over cloth on this plane. I will us the cloth on the Balsa USA Taube 40 I now have. I too have about three more planes to build after this one and the holidays are slowing me down. How is you old timer coming?

Thanks

Here are some of the latest pic's of my project. I have one pic of the 5 cell battery pack and receiver in the tail section. You can see the two servo's in the same pic. Even with the battery pack and receiver in the tail section along with the servo's I still needed to add 3 oz's of weight to the tail section to get the plane to balance at the CG point.

Hi Jim,
Your Stingray came out very nice. You are going to like the way it flies. It makes me want to build another one. I have one suggestion, I would move your battery pack back more instead of adding any more weight to the tail.
Good luck.

Doug

Hi converts; I've just started reading this episode about the fabric covering and the methods utilized to seal the weave, it dawned on me that some time ago the wife and I had a small shop on which we made baseball uniforms, jackets, banners etc. and one of the fabrics that we used to handle was a "light weight nylon" that is similar to the linning polyester, but this nylon is "ALREADY SEALED" because its water-proofed and it will heat shrink, it is similar to the nylon you will encounter in a wind breaker jacket, wind-sock or some flags for that matter; I will check and see if I still have some left over and do some testing; I think It will be heavier than monokote but if you want to try it?, the covering material that I am presently using is the 2.5 mm self adhesive vinyl (bumper sticker material) which you can purchase in a sign's supply store I personaly like it because 1.- is cheaper than monokote, 2.- it's easier to work with, 3.- you only need a heat gun and 4.- there is an ample array of colors and design patterns to choose from. Oh and one other thing "its paintable" try it for once and you will fall in love with the way it handles

Aero Nut

Let us know what this material is you are talking about. I would be interested in trying it on my next project whick is either a Balsa USA Taube 40 or a Sig 4* 60.

Thanks

Which of the two materials the NYLON or the VINYL.
As I said, I found some of the NYLON material and some POLYESTER jacket lining and made some tests with it and my results where the following:
NYLON: I have it in two versions one sealed and one un-sealed, they both behave the same way, they are heat shrinkable but it requires hi temp to do so and it gets tricky, but if you can practice and manage to master it, the rewards are that you will have a material that is very resistant to punctures (this material is what hang gliders and chutes us but in a light weight) and weather.
POLYESTER: This is a cloth type fabric it heat stretches very good but you nead to seal it either with dope or latex paint like it was mentioned before it's less resistant to tears than Nylon.
On both material you will need to aply a coat of some heat stick compound to the air frame in order to bound them.
I still prefer the VINYL STICKER material, this is self adhesive and the only thing you wil need to do is to heat shrink it with a heat gun.
It comes in several widths and you can paint over it with vinyl or acrylic paints(automotive paint stores have a wide range of colors)

I would like to use either the Nylon or Polyester material. Where can I but it. I would like to try some on my next project which I plan the start in February. I use Sig stick-it to attach it to the airframe.

Thanks

you can buy the light weight polyester in any fabric house or Wal-Mart as some of our friends did, just ask for POLYESTER TAFFETA its real light and it will heat shrink, read the previous posts on this same link andyou will beable to download the instructions on how to do it.

Thanks Aero Nut I am on my way to Wally World. My Sig 4 Star 60 says thanks. I am looking forward to seeing how she looks. I plan on covering her with the polyester material then using the Latex paint. Is this the polyester material that is already sealed?

Thanks