acdii

I have this on my bench now for a few years, and not happy with the wing. The skin is too thin and I have broken through it a few times while moving it around and storing it. Anything I can do to make it not so fragile before I glass it? I also screwed up the nose, but thats another story.....

saramos

One possibility would be to use G-10 to sheet the wings instead of balsa. FliteSkin is a skin marketed for RC use, but you can also purchase it through a number of composite stores like ACP. For wings, I would suggest .010, or maybe .015.
The skins are applied with urethane glue like Gorilla Glue.

Here's a photo of a horizontal stab covered with G-10. The underside of the skin is scuffed with sandpaper for better adhesion. The top surface is ready for paint.


This is a mock up of a modified TF P-51 wing for relocating the gear to a more scale location.
This project has been on the backburner for about 4 years.


Scott

acdii

I think we have a winner. Sure looks like it will save a lot of time too. Will also resolve my gear door issues, I made inner working wheel doors that keep going flat on me so they dont line up after sitting for a while. Looks like I can also make the interior of the wheel wells look more scale and be stronger. I can also use this on my TF GE Corsair.

Thanks, I think 2 sheets should do it for both planes, and will get a half sheet of the thicker one for the gears.

saramos

I have an alternative for you for the gear doors. The G-10 will not hold the shape of the curve on it's own. What you can do is skin the wing including the gear bay door area. Once on, cover an area larger than the gear doors with monocote, just tape the edges down so the monocote lays flat with no wrinkles. Then lay up a few layers of 3 oz fiberglass with each layer oriented 45 degrees from the last. Then you can cut the bays open and make the doors from the fiberglass, and they will conform to the curve of the wing perfectly. This can be done for servo hatches, and access doors on the wing, fuselage, or where ever needed. Another think to keep in mind is that the G-10 cannot be formed around compound curves. You could use it for the outer panels of a Corsair wing, but it will not conform around the gull center section of the Corsair wing. You can do strips for some more gentle compound curves, such as on a Spitfire wing, but the compound curve on the Corsair would be too much for G-10.

Scott

acdii

Excellent information here. Thanks, I will use this technique for the Stang. I haven't even opened the box yet on the Corsair, so no idea yet on what the covering thickness is for the wing, but if its the same thin balsa as the Stang, then I will look for something thicker and fit it accordingly. If I had known how fragile the wood would be on the stang I never would have sheeted it with it. Just lifting it up I can hear the wood cracking. With the robarts, retract servo, flap servos and aileron servos, the wing is pretty heavy. Now that I have a few builds under my belt, I am going to retackle this project over the winter and rebuild the wing. I may just see if I can get a new wing kit and build a new one with the modifications I made already mapped to the new parts and stiffened where needed, and lightened elsewhere. To get the retracts to work properly with the inner doors I had to take quite a bit out of a few ribs.

Ideally I would like to get some laser cut plywood for the ribs starting where the retracts attach up to the center section, and balsa from there out.

mattnew

My Feedback: (2)

I would argue that this is just as it should be prior to glassing. You want the wood for the skin to be very light which is also going to translate to being a bit fragile. the Fiberglass and resin will add a significant amount of hardness to the wood. I think this is really a non-issue. If you were going to monokote it without glassing it I might give you a different answer.

acdii

It didn't go on smoothly though and has bubbles in it, and too weak in sections, the wood itself wasn't very strong. Since I have to strip off a few large sections to repair it, might as well do it all so its done right and I like the Fliteskin, glue it on and paint it. If I glass it now as it is, it will look like crap.

bigtim

My Feedback: (13)

I sheeted 2 TF wings with there supplied sheeting and am working on a 3rd rehab project so I know the feeling about the thin wood, a easy fix is to just buy some light weight 3/32 balsa sheets and cover the wings with that.

when I built my TF Spitfire the sheeting went smoothly,when I did my P-47 I had a scalloped leading edge that could have been overcome with the thicker wood, it was a issue I had to correct with filler which didn't make me happy and added weight to the model,if you select some light weight wood your not going to add much weight given the surface area and the the slightly thicker sheets make a big difference in strength as well.

my next build will be either a TF P-51 ARF converted to a C model i have a Malcom hood canopy for it.
or my FW190D9 kit from TF which I will go with the thicker wing skin to avoid this very issue,its a toss up on where I want to go.

I am wrapping up my long term A8 project which I have some updates to post about, the 1/16 wing skins work if you glass them soon after you put them together but are susceptible to hangar rash if they sit for too long the thin balsa is really fragile.

acdii

This is what happened. It sat for 2 years unfinished, and the skins are in pretty sorry shape. I contemplated just getting a set of ARF wings, but that's cheating.

BTW I found out hairspray works as a mold release for making molds. cool, maybe I will make a one piece cowl for the Stang instead of the goofy drooped nose it has now. I dont know what I did wrong, but that nose looks terrible.

Leroy Gardner

Acdii, if this is the 1/5 scale mustang, I used the lite ply wheel doors that came with the kit, after puting in warm water and useing various shims to form them to fit and they dried I covered the back with 1/16" bass wood drilled with 1/16" holes and clamped them to back of doors and then used CA thin in the holes to bind them on. I'm out of town and don't have access to my picts. but when I get back home I'll look in and post picts if you would like to see them. Should be back Sunday.

Wing skins are 3/32" and should not have been a problem, if thats the case, taking them off can be a problem. if done carefully you may be able to clean them up well enough to reskin them, by the way the ARF wing does not mount the same way, dowls are in front and bolts in rear so save your money on that one.

Leroy

acdii

Its the 1/7th scale, 60" wing. I did something similar for the wheel doors, sandwiched 1/64 ply between 1/32 balsa and used the rib cutout for the shape. It worked somewhat, but over time the door flattened out and doesnt sit flush anymore. Also having problems with hinging them since they are so close to the center they were binding when opening. I made some changes and used robart pin hinges instead, and they seem to open better, but wont know until they are epoxied in place.

bigtim

My Feedback: (13)

a little bump are you working on your Stang, I just recently purchased a Gold Edition B model (I now have 2) for building I am going to build this into a Malcom hood B/C model instead of the ARF conversion I had intended on originally doing this will be my winter project I want to do a power build so its ready to go by June.

acdii

Its actually back on my bench, was going to start glassing the fuse, but came down with a virus that kept me from working on it. I am going to use the waterbased glassing liquid and have the base coat applied and partially sanded. I cut a hatch in the nose and just going to use magnets to hold it in place, this way I can feed the fuel, power and control lines to the engine. I was going to rip off the nose and redo it since it looks goofy, but I made a template off the plans and placed it on the fuse, its only off by 1/8th inch, so not going to mess with it. If I really wanted to, I could make it an allison based A model with the scoop above the prop, then the cowl would look straight, but I spent enough time on this, and just want to get it in the air next spring. With my luck, all this prep and work and ideas, and the bird flies like crap. If it flies good, then i will build a second wing for it from scratch and do it more scale like for the b model, with better retracts, and wells. For now, just going to glue up where I poked holes in it and lay some glass on it.

bigtim

My Feedback: (13)

I love the WB poly for glassing if you haven't already purchased yours give Varathane Diamond finish a try, it drys nice and hard and when its cured it sands as well as any clear coat product I have ever used, its my go to glassing material, the lack of smelly materials goes a long way in my house since my shop is connected tot he house.