LOL Tom!

bit of primer will soon fill in the dibets anyway and the high spots can be sanded back.

spent a few hours this arvo doing more repairs to the Cub. 95% of the structural repair is now completed and it is clamped and curing as I write this.

Have started sanding back the nose section back to the filler and once that is completed I will apply filler to the low sports and do the athestics. 2.4oz glass cloth over the nose to strenthen it then onto recovering with Sig Koverall, doping, priming and painting.

Hoping to do an hour or two each night this week with some luck.

Hope your repaint goes well Tom, can only imagine how heartbreaking it is.

It might be a jug but it is still a nice plane.

cheers
Peter

Have you lost your camera? Even your mundane work looks good. Catch the little tyke running rampant for added bonus points. Drop in some shots of your WIP when you have it and I promise not to pick on your Cub. Particularly true given that my painting has left me with little leverage for giving anyone else a hard time.

Tom[:@]

righto Tom here is a decolage of workshop, WIP, P51 and Spit Mk XII (90" span), the poor old Cub all clampmed up - you can see where I have been sanding the nose back!

Even one of the venerable P47 waiting patiently!

Also pics of the Sunday hacks - Pica 65" spit and faithful Astrohog. Even a pic of the glass fuz for a 96" span Mk VIII Spit.

And lastly one of me and the little man (little tyke) in front of some heavy metal at an airshow at RAAF Amberley (F111 base) back in 2004.


Now that should satisfy all the deliverables in your wish list hehehe

Could not do a new one of Mr Mischief as he has crashed for the night (1851 here) after a big day of flying, the park and riding his treadly (bike) all arvo.

Have agood vent mate, you will feel better - just makes sure the cat, dog and kids are out first hehe oh and the wife too!

cheers
Peter

Always good to see your shop, Peter. Already stole a couple of ideas for airplane holding devices from that post alone. The Robart Super Stand thingy doesn't quite cut it from a stability standpoint. We made a bit of progress (or regress) depending on how you look at it. Heatgunned the whole airframe, cut away resulting bubbles and filled with spot glazing putty. Can't tell you how (un)satisfying that was. Got as far as shooting color on the wing and the black cowl checkers. I'll unmask those later tonight. Keeping my fingers crossed on the quality of the mask job.

Tom

Tom,

it will be worth it in the end mate. A good wet sand with 600 wet and dry paper will give you a nice finish once you finish spot filling with the red goo.

Those robart stands are junk in my view, suprised they put their name to it. All I use is 2 old pillows on the stand you see the cub on, it has wheels on it and for a fuz the 2 pillows provide protection and support, works equally as well for awing. AND I can wheel it around in the garage as needed.

Good ideas from my shop? Gee maybe you can copy my mess hehehe

anyway lunch oh clock here and time for a break from schedules for a bit before my eyes go wonky [sm=spinnyeyes.gif]

cheers
Peter

Cowl ring checkers came out decent. There are a couple of areas that are going to need some back masking and touch-up, but not too bad for the first pass. I blew up the two worst areas where I didn't get the masking burnished down tight enough in the grooves. Since I shot the photos, I learned that a little judicious scraping with a #11 blade does wonders on the misty spray-under.

Tom

that is good Tom, you will be well pleased to get the paining done. Patience is the key, don't try and rush it!

cheers
Peter

I loved your line a while back and catch myself using it occasionally...

Slowly, slowly, catchee monkey.

Priceless.

Tom

I can't lay claim to that one, think it was Confucious back in the 1st mellenium. Still very relevant though.


think there is another dittie like that "man who go to bed with problem wake up with solution in hand" hehehe[X(]

Spent several hours today glazing, then sanding. reglazing, then sanding again. Bottom line, this one isn't going to be a beauty queen, but she may end up looking like a warbird. The damn frustrating thing is that even as I sat in the sun sanding it, more tiny blisters continued to appear. Arrrghh! [:@]

Anyhow, Chris and I are going to re-shoot color tomorrow. If it continues to blister, we'll just dress it down over time and call it "flak damage." Some of the stipling kind of looks like weathering. Maybe? Just a little? Come on, humor me.

Anyhow, it's just a jug.

Tom

Did you guys use epoxy or latex. I had a simular problem and found out the latex trapped some water and the sun made it blister. Another time I wet sanded and went too far and water again got traped in the wood. Just an Idea.

Tom I really feel for you on the blistering isue. I think I lucked out on my Spit. The only suggestion I might make is just let the plane set for a while, maybe a month or two. Maybe it will cure out also.I take a lotof pride in my building too. To strip the plane all the way down and take the fiberglass cloth off, I am sure you would pull off some of the wood too. That's not a pretty picture. Good luck what ever you deside to do. Rich

We used epoxy paint. Whatever caused the problem is underneath the primer and glass cloth.

Tom

We talked about going to those lengths. Given that it's the first warbird project and is sporting a couple of other rookie mistakes we decided to try to get the paint to the "presentable" level and enjoy flying it. I'll be a lot less desolate if it suffers from "operator error." Thanks again for the kind words.

Tom

SMUGator,

Thanks for the PM -- and thoughts of relevance. Your Jug is going to look great, so don't think any different. It will certainly look better than a NitroPlan or Hanger 9 ARF. Painting sometimes is so frustrating. The post you referenced I mentioned my Super Sportster that I landed in the cotton field at an angle of attack of about 50 Degrees and 80 MPH. After about 20 hours of repairs, I started the repaint of the fuselage. I had painted it originally with Lustrekote but I did not have any of the Yellow left. I checked 3 or 4 hobby shops here and ended up using Hanger 9 yellow. Went on really nice until I masked it and shot the Missle Red. The lustrekote just ate the yellow right off. It orange peeled all over. I thought maybe I would just sand it so I pulled the masking tape off and it pulled the yellow all the way down to the primer. So I spent about 4 hours with a paint stripper and a sander and had to take it all the way down to the base again.

So I painted it again, but needed a clear coat over to to cover the masking edges. I had read a post here that said the Rustoleum was fuel proof. I did a test and looked compatible. So I clear coated the entire plane with Rustoleum Crystal Clear. Man did it look great, until the first flight and I will tell you that Rustoleum Clear is not fuel proof. So my beautiful Sporster gets cleaned evertime I get her home with mineral spirits because she is a guey mess. After my next project is finished (a scratch built Mig-3) her paint is coming off again.

So make your model for you! You may be in a rough patch but she'll look great when your done!

Here's where I am at on my Mig.

And my Yak-3 -- Painted with Water-based Acrylic and coated with MinWax Polyurethane.

Hey Marc,

Thanks for commiserating and sharing painting woes. I still love this stuff even when it's going sideways. We shot color again today and it looks really good. So good in fact that I'm not going to post pictures because I'm pretty sure what's going to happen the next time it sees the sun.

This one may be a night fighter.

Take care,

Tom

Hey Tom,
very sorry you are still having issues with the bloody paint. Might I suggest a wet sand with 400 grit wet and dry paper right down to the glass covering? Drastic I know but I think if it keeps reacting then you may have to.

Now this is justa suggestion but once you are back to the glass spray with automotive primer or get one of the auto primers that are especially made to act as a deadening agent to prevent reactions from paint. Forget what it is called but if you go down to the local panel beaters and talk to them I'm sure they will give you some good advice.

While there ask if they will mix you up auto acrylic laquer in the required colours. If you gave them say a bottle of Humbrol, testors or whatever brand in the correct colour then could very soon tint up a pint of paint for you. That is what I do on my birds.

Offer them an incentive for doing it, carton of piss always works well here - that is 24 x stubbies of beer to you lot - stubbie is an oz term for smaller glass bottles!!

Or if you have the FTE colour chip charts you can use that.

That way it is an easy job
Food for thought maybe.

you will be surprised at how quickly a wet sand will remove the paint, even 2 pak epoxy based paints. The sanding on the cowl of the cub went back to balsa and filler after 30 mins of moderate effort and it is several coats of Super poxy 2 pak paint. Bloody tough paint I can tell you.


cheers
Peter

Hey Peter,

I think your approach of a good sanding down to the base and building back up is the only way to fully resolve the issue. We may get there at some point in the future. Our thinking at the moment is that after a good sanding and heat-gunning over the past weekend, the blistering is now at the minor nuisance level compared to the "oh holy crap" level that I posted photos of last week. Give that this is our first warbird project and that we are both recertifying after many years away from the sticks, we've decided to go ahead and push this one through to completion, campaign it next season and see how it goes. Whatever additional blistering we get is easy enough to knock down with sandpaper and touch up over time.

Honestly, the small blisters create a very believable pitting effect that may add some interesting weathering effects in the first season. We've started working on an article for Model Aviation with the details on how to achieve that effect for those that are interested in trying to duplicate our work.

The current thinking is that we'll see how it flies and take our chances with it for a bit. Odds are that some major dust-up will happen in the first season that requires a major repair. At that point we'll see how the finish has held up and decide whether or not to rub her back to the bones.

On a happier note, we've decided to distract ourselves from painting for a couple of evenings by installing the cockpit. Couple of questions on that:

[ul][*] Are you fuelproofing your cockpit interiors? This one is currently done in Testors. I have a sliding canopy that will be closed during flight ops.[*] Are you making your seats removable, or hard mounting them to the armor backplate and floor?
[/ul]

Thanks again for the advice and encouragement!

Tom

just to add my .02 to the thread. I have flown my TFGS P47 twice now with the US41 and I can say the plane flies great, tracks straight on tkeoff role but is just a bit underpowered with the US41. I guess it mkes you fly the plane scale.........I like having the insurance of more than enuff power though. I might keep it with the 41 just to keep my flyiing honest...or is it that I am to cheap to buy a larger motor?, I would recommend this as a entry level GS warbird for those who are thinking about it.

Tom,
nope no intention to fuel proof the cockpit or make it or the seat removable.

cheers
me

ram-bro I too have a giant TF with a US41 in it and for my style of flying its just fine for me. Of course I put it on a diet though and took out 2 1/2 lbs of lead up front after I moved a couple of servos from the back to the wing saddle.

nice yakkity yak up there, really pretty aircraft

Pete-----the wing fillets ..............lets get em done ...

There is a full scale Yak at St Mary's Airport in Maryland got to see it make several low passes down the runway --->LIKE WOW did it look and sound awsome

hey Richard did you say rib fillet? ohhh bugger wing fillet!

hmmm yup it is sitting on the bench at least, too late by the time I'm home of an evening to do a lot. Have to finish off the Cub and get it flying again. One thing I never do is leave broken models broken for long - got to fix em.

There is a full size allison powered Yak here in Brissy, have seen it fly a few times - man it really kicks the butt off the P51D ! Have seen em both flying and the P51D is stodgy old girl at low altitude.

cheers
Peter

We had excellent pork rib filets for dinner with a nice port demi glace, but my wing fillets are an abortion. Looking forward to you raising the standard, Peter.

A little color goes a long way. Lot's of detailing and weathering (and checkers) yet to be done, but she's starting to look presentable.

Tom

Would have posted some pictures, but this error message has been the order of the day lately.

Request object error 'ASP 0104 : 80004005'

Operation not Allowed

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