bruce88123

Building board info that I know Ken used.
http://www.airfieldmodels.com/inform...oard/index.htm

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Nope, your ears aren't playing tricks on you. That is atillery you hear. If I remember correctly they were shooting at Mo-way house that day that I shot that video. After you've lived in Lawton for a few years you learn to tune it out and not hear it anymore!

Ken

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

For my board I used 18 gauge sheet steel. I was able to get a 24"x72", 12"x36", and 12"x24" sheets for about $25 (if I remember correctly). The large sheet of steel is mounted on top of a hollow core door, I put a wood screw in each corner to hold it in place. The steel stays flat from the door underneath, so all the wood screws do is hold it in place. I have another door on another table that I use the smaller sheets of steel on, for building smaller assemblies on. If you get sheet steel you need to seal it to keep it from rusting. I use good ole fashion automotive wax to seal the sheets and keep them from rusting.

Ken

Quinoa

Stainless steel is not gut for a building board? Or the magnets don´t stick the same.

I have seen that you have drawn many lines (with a marker?) on your board. Is that interesting for building when you use plans?

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

The lines were something I did before I ever used the board. I thought they would help. Truth be told I could live without then at all. I actually found something that helps more than the lines do. I found this at Wal-mart, [link]http://www.blackanddecker.com/ProductGuide/Product-Details.aspx?ProductID=10968[/link] . It's got a magnetic base so I can put it right on the board and it stays where I put it. It projects a great line for checking if something is straight. If I build another magnetic board I probably won't waste the time putting the lines on it.

Ken

bruce88123

Here is a site with a picture of the device.
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Decker-B.../dp/B000B8GBBS

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

We now should have to bottom of the wing covered, with the wingtips not covered yet. Also, don’t worry that we don’t have the ailerons covered yet either. We’ll get them a little later on. Picture #1 shows what our wing should look like from the top of the wing. As we did with the bottom of the wing there is going to be a little bit of “prep” work on the top of the wing. I want to put a strip of covering down the center of the wing where out two pieces of covering are going to meet, and I want to go ahead and cover the reinforcing plate on the trailing edge of the wing.

To start off with cut a 1” strip of covering for the center joint. Lay this in place and iron it down into position (picture #2). Cut another piece large enough to cover the reinforcing plate (picture #3 & #4). Lay this piece into position (picture #5) and iron it down on the plate, using a trim iron to iron down the edges (picture #6). Picture #7 shows the plate covered.

Pictures
1. Top of wing ready to cover
2. Iron a strip of covering down the center of the wing
3. Cut a piece of covering to cover the reinforcing plate
4. Cut a piece of covering to cover the reinforcing plate
5. Place the covering over the plate.
6. Iron the covering in place on the plate
7. Wing prep work completed.


Until next time

Ken

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

What I want to talk about now is, in my opinion, where most people fail to produce a good covering job. I’m talking about open bays in the wing (and tail sections later on). People will spend hours covering the wing only to have the covering look loose or actually sagging. Or the first time their plane is sitting in the sun the covering bubbles and wrinkles. Improperly covering an open bay is where about 90% of people fail to produce a good covering job. So, what are the mistakes that everybody makes? It’s not mistakes, but rather one mistake. They trap air in the open bay areas of a wing. At first glance this may not seem like it could possibly be a problem, but let’s spend a little bit of time talking about it and you’ll see exactly what I am talking about. If you look closely at the bays in the wing you can easily see that as soon as you place the covering on the top of the wing those bays will be completely sealed. And here is what happens. You place the covering over the top of the wing and the bay is sealed off now. Then you heat the covering to shrink it, but remember you now have a pocket of air “trapped” in the bay below the covering. What happens to air when it’s heated? You got it, it expands. So now you are shrinking the covering over a “bubble” of air that has expanded. While you may have the covering “tight” when the air in the bubble is hot, as soon as you take the heat away that bubble will then reduce in size. And what happens? Yep, the covering that was tight now loosens up. Many people will then try to shrink it again, with the same exact results. Trust me, no matter how many times you try to shrink the covering you will have exactly the same results. In fact, I once saw a guy spent 4 nights trying to fix this problem. The next weekend at the field he was complaining about this problem and was wondering why I don’t have the same problem. I spent about 5 minutes explaining how to fix this, he went home that night and got it on the first try!! So, what is this miracle cure? It’s quite simple, a T-pin.

Let me explain this and you’ll understand what I mean by a T-pin being the solution. If you examine the problem closely the solution will suddenly become clear as a bell. Remember, the problem is air being trapped in an open bay in the wing. Look at picture #1 and then think about the problem again. Ding!!! There you go, you got it. The solution is to give the air a way of escaping the bay when it expands. So what we need to do is look at every bay in the wing, and see if we can trace a route to outside of the wing. If you look at pictures #3 & #4 you can see that some of the bay are open to others, so through these you can trace a lot of area to the outside of the wing. But not all areas, so for those areas that are still “isolated” we need to open up a path for the air to escape out of the wing. Here is where the T-pin comes in(pictures #4). We need to make a hole in the ribs for the air to escape through (picture #5). Trust me here, the hole from a T-pin is more than big enough for what we need. And this size hole will not weaken the rib in any way. So now we need to take a T-pin and poke holes in the ribs to the bays that are still isolated (pictures #6 & #7). If you look at pictures #8-#10 you can see how I am making a path to all of the isolated bays through the structure of the wing. NOTE: You don’t need to use a pin for each rib, I just did this so I could illustrate what I am talking about.

After you have opened up an air path to all of the bays of the wing you’re all set to start covering the top of the wing. Now when you heat the covering over the open bays the air has someplace to escape to when it expands. So there won’t be a “bubble” that you need to try to cover. Now when you shrink the covering it will stay “shrunk” when you are done. Very simple solution to a big problem.

Pictures
1. Open bays in a wing can be a problem
2. Trace a path for air to escape from all bays in a wing
3. Trace a path for air to escape from all bays in a wing
4. Poke a T-pin through a rib to open up a pathway.
5. The hole in the rib doesn’t need to be big
6. Poke a T-pin through a rib to open up a pathway.
7. Poke a T-pin through a rib to open up a pathway.
8. Open a pathway for air to escape out of the wing
9. Open a pathway for air to escape out of the wing
10. Open a pathway for air to escape out of the wing


Until next time

Ken

Quinoa

Impossible to buy. They don´t send to Spain []. I don´t understand it. I have bought a lot of things from Amazon.

bruce88123

Ken, do you take out some of those pins before you finish the covering or just leave them in? You didn't mention that in the post above.

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Oh crap!!!!!!! That must have been what was rattling around in there on the trim flight!!!!!!

Ken

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Yes, I took them out!!!!!

Ken

Quinoa

Ken

How much does your steel building table (24”x72” ) weigh? Wht´s its thickness?





Alberto

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

To be totally honest with you, I have no idea how much it weighs. The steel is 18 guage steel. It sits on a hollow core door which sits on a table. It's not excessivly heavy though. Sorry I can't be more help.

Ken

Quinoa

18 means thickness (inches)?

SebM

It's the thickness express in gauge. If you want more precision, 18 gauge is 0.048 inches OR 1.22 mm of thickness.

Quinoa

thank you for the explanation. Units are a mess between different countries

PipeMajor

My Feedback: (1)

Well the metric system is pretty much universal - outside of the USA. [sm=tired.gif]

Warbird Joe

lol yeah I remember my 1st week at the base. It scared you to death then you get used to it.

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Up to now we should have the entire bottom of the wing covered, as well as having prepped the wing bays so that air won’t be trapped in them when we cover the top of the wing. So now we should be ready to start covering the top of the wing now. One note about this thread itself, as I continue through steps like this I won’t repeat things that I covered in previous posts. Most of the steps for the top of the wing are the same as for covering the bottom of the wing, so I won’t repeat the detailed instructions. What I will comment on are things that are different than when we covered the previous parts of the wing, and point out how to handle the differences. So, with that said let’s get started on covering the top of the wing.

As with the bottom of the wing measure out, cut, and place the covering on the top of the wing (picture #1). Start off tacking down the inside corners at the leading and trailing edges of the wings (pictures #2 & #3). As we move to the outer edge of the wing we run into a point where it differs from the bottom of the wing. Picture #4 shows that there really isn’t much wood at the tip of the wing to tack the covering down to. So instead of tacking it at the leading edge we’ll tack it down to the wing spar. Stretch the covering over the wing spar (picture #5) and tack it down. Then we can tack it to the trailing edge as normal (pictures #6 & #7). Once you have the covering securely tacked down on the spar and the trailing edge it wouldn’t hurt to also tack it down the actual leading edge of the wing, before it starts into the wing tip (picture #8). When I showed the bottom of the wing being covered we were pretty lucky in the fact that the covering pulled pretty tight with very few wrinkles. It’s nice when this happens, but more often than not you will have wrinkles that you have to deal with. If you look at picture #9 you will see that we have a lot of wrinkles in the covering right now. I’m showing this so that you will all understand that this happens more often than not. Like I said earlier, don’t panic. Believe it or now these wrinkles can and will be taken out as we proceed.


Pictures
1. Covering for the top of the wing cut and put in place.
2. Tacking down the first corner of the covering.
3. Tacking down the second corner of the wing.
4. Because of the construction of the wing tip we won’t be able to tack a corner here.
5. Stretch the covering over the wing spar and tack in place.
6. Tack the final corner at the trailing edge.
7. Tack the final corner at the trailing edge.
8. Tack down on the leading edge of the wing.
9. Lots of wrinkles is normal when we cover.

Until next time

Ken

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

As we continue on with covering the top of the wing we’ll need to start tacking down the front and leading edges of the wing. One note I want to make is that it’s important to pay attention to the “direction” of the wrinkles in the covering. It’s important to pay attention to these because how we tack the covering now will pull a majority of those wrinkles out. If you look back to picture #9 in my last post you will see that the majority of those wrinkles run “side-to-side” on the wing. Because of this we’ll need to pay extra attention as we tack the front and rear of the wing so that we make sure that we pull as many of these wrinkles out prior to heating the covering.

I did this part of the wing exactly the same as I did on the bottom of the wing, move halfway down the wing, tack the leading edge (picture #1), and then tack the trailing edge. Continue this exactly in the same manner as the bottom of the wing. In pictures #2 & #3 I used a trim iron along the leading edge to tack down some extra spots. I did this to help pull out all of the wrinkles that we saw before we started. After we have the leading edge and trailing edges tacked you can see in picture #4 that the directions of the wrinkles have now “changed directions” and are running fore and aft on the wing. Looking at picture #5 you can see most of the bigger wrinkles were pulled out, so now we’ll go ahead and seal down the edges of the entire wing area. In pictures #6 & #7 you see where I was sealing off the edges of the leading and trailing edges. If you remember back to when we covered the bottom of the wings as we were sealing the edges we had a straight line on each end of the wing to seal down. Now on the top of the wing we don’t have that out at the wing tips because the tips are round. So what we need to do is seal down the covering all the way around the curve of the wingtip (pictures #8 - #11)

Pictures
1. Tacking down the leading edge.
2. Tacking down the leading edge.
3. Tacking down the leading edge.
4. Wrinkles in the covering.
5. Most of the bigger wrinkles pulled out.
6. Sealing the trailing edge of the covering.
7. Sealing the leading edge of the covering.
8. Sealing the edge of the covering around the curve of the wingtip.
9. Sealing the edge of the covering around the curve of the wingtip.
10. Sealing the edge of the covering around the curve of the wingtip.
11. Sealing the edge of the covering around the curve of the wingtip.

Until next time

Ken

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Before we move on to shrinking the covering we need to spend a little more time on the wingtip. The reason for that is right now there is only a small bit of covering attached to the edges of the wingtips and this isn’t enough to hold when we start to shrink the covering. So what we need to do it turn the wing over and seal the covering down to the underside of the wing wingtip. As we get started remember that we have a flap of covering still hanging from when we covered the bottom of the wing, so flip it up out of the way as we do this (picture #1). Some might ask why I don’t just use the covering iron to iron this flap over the wingtip. The reason is that since the wingtip is curved just using the covering iron to iron it over will result in wrinkles as the covering bunches up around the curve of the wingtip. Instead I use the heat gun to heat the covering as I pull it up and around the curve of the wingtip (picture #2 & #3). Doing it this way will get the material to stretch and conform to the curve of the wingtip. Once you it stretch around the curve of the wingtip go ahead and use the iron to iron the covering down onto the underside surface of the wingtip (picture#4 - #6).


Pictures
1. Turn the wing over to attach covering over the wingtip.
2. Using the heat gun to stretch the covering around the curve of the wingtip.
3. Using the heat gun to stretch the covering around the curve of the wingtip.
4. Use the covering iron to iron down the covering to the underside surface of the wingtip.
5. Use the covering iron to iron down the covering to the underside surface of the wingtip.
6. Use the covering iron to iron down the covering to the underside surface of the wingtip.

Until next time

Ken

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

There’s not anything that I’m doing for the covering here in this post. But I wanted to take a minute and show a few pictures showing how many wrinkles are actually in the covering at this point. I’m showing this because I know a lot of people get scared or worried when they see this many wrinkles in their covering. But remember the advice I gave at the start of this, “Don’t panic”. It’s pretty easy to pull this many wrinkles out.

Pictures
1. Wrinkles in the covering before we shrink the covering.
2. Wrinkles in the covering before we shrink the covering.
3. Wrinkles in the covering before we shrink the covering.
4. Wrinkles in the covering before we shrink the covering.
5. Wrinkles in the covering before we shrink the covering.
6. Wrinkles in the covering before we shrink the covering.

Until next time

Ken

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Once again, I’m not going to spend a lot of time explaining what I’m doing here as I did that for the bottom of the wing. Pictures #1 - #5 show using the heat gun to shrink the covering and pictures #6 - #10 show ironing the covering down to the structure of the wing.


Pictures
1. Shrinking the covering with the heat gun.
2. Shrinking the covering with the heat gun.
3. Shrinking the covering with the heat gun.
4. Shrinking the covering with the heat gun.
5. Shrinking the covering with the heat gun.
6. Using the covering iron to seal the covering to the wood.
7. Using the covering iron to seal the covering to the wood.
8. Using the covering iron to seal the covering to the wood.
9. Using the covering iron to seal the covering to the wood.
10. Using the covering iron to seal the covering to the wood.

Until next time

Ken

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Next I turned the wing back over and I’m going to clean up the wingtip. I used a straight edge razor blade to trim off the excess covering that I folded over earlier (pictures #1 - #3). Now take the covering iron and seal down the rest of the covering left after cutting (picture #4 & #5). If you look at pictures #6 and #7 you’ll see a small problem that I ran into. Originally I had planned to just iron down the flap left on the bottom covering , but I didn’t pay close enough attention as I worked on the wingtip. I thought I had the flap away from the covering from the top of the wing has I pulled it around the curve of the wingtip, but I didn’t. You can see where the two pieces of covering melted together. This made the flap I had left unusable. But…….. what have I said about situations like this? That’s right…..don’t panic. Looking at picture #8 you can see where we have the covering ironed down to the edge of the wing. So what we need to do is cut off the bad piece of covering (picture #9 & #10), and then iron down the flap to the wingtip (picture #11)

Pictures
1. Trim the excess covering away.
2. Trim the excess covering away.
3. Iron down the flap of covering left after trimming.
4. Iron down the flap of covering left after trimming.
5. Iron down the flap of covering left after trimming.
6. Mistake. Top covering melted to the flap left on the bottom.
7. Mistake. Top covering melted to the flap left on the bottom.
8. Preparing to cut away bad piece of covering.
9. Cutting the flap off.
10. Iron down the excess left after cutting flap off.
11. Iron down the excess left after cutting flap off.

Until next time

Ken