sure, i seal the balsa with sanding sealer before i glass. it prevents the moisture from the polycrylic from warping the wood. another area in which the sealer helps is allowing me to fill in the grain in the balsa. after i seal i water down hobbylite balsa filler and paint it on the wood (across the grain) and then sand. you're going to have to sand after you seal anyway, might as well double up. now you have a extra smooth fuse or wing ready for glass.

and as for sealing the wheel wells the paint won't soak in excessively. have fun.

Ahhh, you're using WBPU... I'm using Zpoxy.
By the way, I weighed the wing panel prior to glassing and after. Glassing the top of the wing (3/4oz cloth and un-thinned epoxy resin - un-sanded) added 38grams to the wing. So I figure less than 3oz to finish the entire wing.
FYI a roll of Monokote weighs 2.6oz (26"x72" roll 13sq feet at .2oz/square foot)

Ready for primer! I wanted to show off my canopy, so I pulled the masking tape for the photo's. I sprayed the inside of the canopy with metallic silver, blue and black. The silver is heavier in the front and fades to black. It's glued on with epoxy and has an epoxy and micro balloons fillet.

Absolutely OUTSTANDING!! I love the lines.

Gene

Hey Jeff,

How's your Dirty Birdy coming? It sure looks good so far.....

Thanks David.

She's just about ready for paint. I'm still wet sanding and sanding and sanding....

I hope to start puting some color on this week sometime.

Great job Jeff! Will surely pay off in a shiny finish!

The weather man hasn't been too cooperative lately in regards to my desire to paint the DB. We did have a couple days of pleasant weather, and I did manage to put a tack coat of primer on, but now it's back to sub 40's and rain.
My buddy Chris came by the other night to check on my progress since we're going to paint his Summit 3 at the same time. He pointed out that I didn't make accomodations for a switch or the pipe mount. [:@] So I'll be working on those two items over the next evening or so. I'm really at a loss as to where to mount the switch. I'm not too keen on the idea of just mounting it to the side of the fuse. I'd like something a bit cleaner and still have the ability to charge the plane without removing the wing.
Ideas????

I managed to whittle out fuse and wing paint stands out of some 1x2 pine I had laying around the garage. They came out pretty good IMP. The wing stand has the capability of removing the wing and painting the other side without unbolting anything. Pretty slick for some 1am engineering. The control surfaces and the hatch covers will be supported by skewers and stuck in some foam for painting.

Nice job on the painting fixtures! Really like the wing fixture you made up, hope you don't mind if I copy it! For charge plug receptacles, I like the ones made by Ernst, they offer a pretty small and clean installation. For the switch, I prefer mounting it inside (90deg to the length of the fuse) and actuate it with 1/16" dia brass wire that is L-shaped (short end thru the switch slider). Soldered on the end outside the fuse is a small eyelet (1/16" ID) to serve as a grip. Probably a million other ways to do it, but this has always worked for me.

I use the same brass wire idea as Jeff. I run it through a piece of yellow inner nyrod tube and CA a small bead on the outer end for gripping and a little bit of a finished look. It's worked well for years for me.

Chuck

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I ended up using an MPI charge jack/switch and mounted it to the hatch I made to access the pump. I'll just have to be carefull not to burn myself on the header...

Spraying the final Klass Kote primer tonight, then hopefully get a coat of white on it tomorrow.

I love that canopy!

Thanks Dave.

My buddy Chris and I have been playing with color schemes for the DB and came up with this. It's inspired (loosely) on the Bridi XLT box scheme.

Excellent scheme!

I love round trim patterns on pattern ships rather than the classic angular ones in many of Joe's designs. Although I know it's a hassle, I might add a splash of a third colour - this makes the model polychromatic rather than pigmented monochromatic. A touch of red/orange makes for a nicely visible model since the colours are complementary (with the blue).

David.

I thought about using red/white/blue, but I've been accused of only having red white and blue airplanes... I'll see what I can do to work in some red. I don't want to be pigmented.
PRIMER!!!
Here's a shot of the DB and Chris' Summit III. White paint goes on tomorrow.

You beat me to the punch with the photo! While I was fully protected from the spray with my painters mask, I think Jeff's started to leak a little as he was full on swaying to the Bob Marley music in the bakground.... I think I can still smell the paint from here...

We did manage to spray some white paint last night. It came out pretty good except for a few runs...[sm=angry.gif]
The white paint on white primer along with mediocre lighting made it difficult to see where I had paint and where I needed to paint. Once we sand down some of the imperfect spots, I'll apply another coat of white, then it's on to some color (Blue for the DB and Red for the Summit).
The pictures are a bit out of focus. I think I had some primer dust on the lense.

I just searching around RC Universe today and I can't believe I came around this thread. I have been out of the r/c flying for awhile. I am in the process of getting my old trainer ready to fly. I also am working on my fiberglass/foam wing Dirty Birdy. I am so lucky I found this thread. Hope someone can help me with this. Someone long time ago talked me into using this water base stuff to glue on the balsa sheeting to the foam wing. Well after some time that stuff looses it's bond. I never did finish the wing, so I was hoping that I could pull a couple a sheets or half the wing off and redo it. One of the problems I am having is that I do not have the original foam shucks to hold the wing when re-gluing the sheeting back on. If anyone might have a set of Bridy shucks please send me an email. Thanks. I would sure like to fly this plane.

You're probably better off just ordering a new set of cores and toss the old ones. .

definitely.

Eureka aircraft can cut you new cores. They (Don) offer excellent service.

You can get new foam as Keith suggests. It would be a much easier process overall. There are a couple sources that the group normally posting on this thread can guide you through that.

Another option, if you have decent building skill, use the old foam as a pattern for ribs. Just cut at a spacing of about 3 1/2 inches or so and use the sections as templates for tracing. You may save the cut pieces because there are even more advanced methods available, such as the lost foam technique by Bobby Hunt, that can result in a lighter wing overall than foam and balsa.

As a guide for weight build up, back inthe day we used to shoot at a 2 1/2 lb wing RTF, (servos, linkages and retracts included). Many, possibly most, came in at around 3 lbs.

Nowadays, with more refined skill, this 700 sq inch wing should not weigh more than 2 lbs RTF

MattK

Defintely.

And no sanding of the old sheeting off with a messy foam surface. Start afresh and use epoxy or polyurethane glue and weight those puppies down!

Just don't use water based glue on the fuse... A little harder to replace that one...

David.

Matt,

Although I believe I've asked before, in a nutshell, what's entailed in the AUW 2 lb 700 squares wing?

[ul][*] hollowing out the core?[*] partial sheeting or 1/32 sheeting?[*] CF mat "glassing"?[*] water based paint?
[/ul]

I can do a 2.5 lb 750 squares wing easily with heavy retracts and covering but not glassed and painted.

David.

Matt,

I’m also interested in this technique “by Bobby Hunt” is there an article or

any info that you can share?