Didn't some American squadrons use the DH4 on the Western Front? They would have been similar to the British versions but with a different cockade. Having said that I can see the appeal of the American trainer scheme, chrome yellow wings and red, white and blue stars on the wing, would make the model very easy to see. Many were used by the US Mail and others were sold on to the civilian market. I expect that there were some colourful civilian options. I'm also a keen user of Solartex but it seems to get more expensive with each passing year.

I'm also enjoying retirement.

While oil based color coats can yellow, clear coats, especially polyurethane, do yellow. On a models, such as yours, this can be used as a weathering technique.

If you want to avoid yellowing, you may want to try automotive, or house paints.

Hey Telemaster I would love to see the article and hear more about this airplane.

Tom, how does house paint hold up against glow fuel? And is automotive clear in the rattle can a good alternative for fuel proofing? Dupli-Color brand appears to be the easiest to find. Dupli-Color makes a Matt finish wheel coat which looks like it might work as an alternative to a glossy product.

I had thought I posted this here once but I don't see it, the DR.1 is in the tail feathers stage.[ATTACH]2171588[/IMG][ATTACH]2171589[/IMG]

House paint doesn't hold up to glow fuel. I doubt that Duplicolor clear will, either. Both are fine when flying gas.


As you know, I use Minwax Polyurethane for clear coating my glow powered models. At $10 bucks a can, it's an economical and easy to use aerosol.

Nelson's and Klass Kote are viable solutions, but both are two part options. Neither are available in aerosol form.

Thanks for the info Tom!

We use automotive paint on R/C scale hydroplanes routinely. Since the average racer runs 50-60% nitro, I'd say it holds up well to the fuel though it can be a bit brittle in the event of an impact

Want white? Use 21st Cenury Fabric. I have a 1/4 scale cub covered with it for like 10 years, still white. Originally I had solartex white with urethane (yes, I still have a piece of that covering somewhere, it looks yellow:-)

When I recovered the model like 10 years ago, (after doing a lot of changes, it was at least 15 years then), I left the tail section intact, and just painted over the yellowish solartex with rattle can white. It is still white today:-)

Gerry
PS: the model was always Q42 powered.

I have found that white acrylic decor paint does not yellow and is very durable. I used it on my 10 year old grand daughter's toy chest 9 years ago, and affter two more grandkids, one now five, it has helod up great.

Do your hydro's use aerosol automotive paint ? Does the water wash the model, or does the fuel residue sit on the finish ? Does your auto paint utilize a hardener ?

There are several types of automotive paint. Being more specific would help us to analyze your response.

By "acrylic" I assume that you are referring to latex acrylic. Latex does not yellow.

I use the yellowing as a detailing tool. It makes my Scale, 30s Era models look more realistic, at least to my eyes.

I used 21st Century Fabric for years. It's a good product. These days, I prefer to use natural Solartex, and paint. Among other things, this eliminates the need to find paint that matches the covering.

Most of the people that have scale boats paint them with PPG or Nasson two part paints with two part clear over the top. While rattle cans can be used and are available in some locations, most use the paint gun method for more more color choices as well as more consistent results.
As far as being fuel proof, we normally run between 50 and 70% nitro in our fuel so it's much harder on the finish than the <20% fuels most use in aircraft. Most wipe off the boat after fueling, more due to safety than issues with the paint being damaged. Unlike aircraft, our boats use sharpened metal props that spin at a minimum of 2500RPM. To lose control of one of these on the way to the water can have serious consequences

I used PPG concept for a while, it was glow compatible, but developed a asthma problem brought on by the arsenic in the reducer. I switched to Klass Kote (I have not ordered any in 7 years I hope they are still in business) this has proved to be just as tough as the epoxies of the 70's, 80's, and 90's. the first thing I painted with it was a 68in Bismarck for my son. it spends a lot of time sitting on docks, shelves, car floors, stones on shore line with a wt of 45# and it has not scratched once. impressive!

as for yellowing I have the boat (above ) and two planes painted with it, no white, and it still looks pretty good.

Joe

This makes sense, now. The two part stuff has, in my experience, held up well to glow fuel. Most aerosol automotive paints are not, by nature, a two part product. OKC was asking about aerosol automotive paint, which is an entirely different product from what you are using.

My Stinson was painted with a two part PPG automotive paint. My Ryan Brougham, with Nason.

When using professional grade auto paint products, proper masks and ventilation should be used. As paladin states, these paints can do harm.

Which is why most that don't have the specialized equipment won't use one of the more popular paints from the 70s, Imron. From what I've been told, the stuff was so bad that even being in the area without a respirator was asking for trouble. Some supply houses won't even stock it for that reason

If you can find it, there is a 2K rattle can clear that is 2 part. You slam the can to break the seal, shake the living S*** out of it and spray. You have to use it all up or it will cure in the can. It is identical to the 2 part clear with hardener that you need a spray gun for. http://www.eastwood.com/spray-max-2k...t-aerosol.html

Looks like they have a matt finish too, $24.99 can and $4.95 economy shipping but 1 can might do it.

It takes 6 aerosol cans to paint most 1/4 scale models. That's $150 to clear coat a model.

Price a gallon of clear and hardener, along with reducer for cleaning the gun. $150 is reasonable. They may have single stage color in 2K, so you can paint and seal all in one shot. I can tell you napa Clear over Latex works very well.

You asked for it! There's a Part 2 as well, "How The Cardinal Met Its End."

In 1960 was about 12 years old and this is when I built my first model aeroplane. My father had never built a model aircraft but two of my uncles had, and so it came to pass that I was assisted in this process by my Uncle Geoff, an architectural draughtsman, who built beautiful free flight models and who had married my mother’s sister; gliders were his particular passion. The first model was the Keil Kraft “Ajax”, a 30” span rubber powered model, itself an enlargement of the more popular “Achilles.” This was followed by a small Keil Kraft glider. Neither was well-built and neither flew very well. Neither did I get a positive reaction from Uncle Geoff who criticised my inadequate workmanship and urged me to take more time over my next model!

Had I given up at this stage I would not have been writing this now, but I bought a Mills .75cc diesel engine with the proceeds of my paper round and a Veron “Cardinal” to suit it. This was a 36” high wing monoplane with a sheet fuselage. Stung by Geoff’s earlier criticism, I took my time over its construction, double-glueing all of the joints with balsa cement, and it came out looking pretty good even if I say so myself.

Now for the covering; the flying surfaces were not a problem, I had decided to finish them in yellow lightweight tissue. However, I’ve always been one who wanted to stand out from the crowd, (years later several people told me, too late, that I should have been an actor,) and I wanted to finish the fuselage in purple but in those days you could not buy purple dope but you could buy red dope and you could buy blue dope; I bought a tin of each. Had I finished the model in either of those colours the model would have looked good in a conventional colour scheme but I mixed the two together and they came out brown! The wing and tailplane were covered in yellow tissue, given two coats of dope and a coat of fuel proofer and looked really smart. Then there was nothing for it but to take my brown and yellow Cardinal round to Geoff to show him.

To do this I had to go to his parents’ house. It was the summer of 1960, Geoff had contracted cancer and he and his wife had moved in with his mother and father so that all three of them could look after him. He was to die of this disease the following winter, just a few months after his baby son was born; he was only 31. He was very positive about my improved workmanship but questioned the use of heavy coloured dope on the fuselage until I explained that it had a sheeted fuselage. He didn’t mention the colour!

So after showing him the model, I went with my father and his brother, my Uncle Ivor, who had also built model aircraft, to Forton Aerodrome to fly the model. Geoff wasn’t fit enough to join us. Forton was a WW2 training aerodrome. It was here that the great fighter ace Jean-Pierre Closterman first flew a Spitfire. In 1960 most of the main runway hadn’t disappeared beneath the plough and we flew the model from the intersection of the two runways. It was a beautiful windless summer’s day and having trimmed the model over the proverbial long grass I put some fuel into the thimble-like fuel tank and launched it. The model climbed to height, as the fuel ran out the engine revs would rise and the model would climb more steeply. When the engine cut, the model would stall, regain flying speed and glide back to earth in wide circles. As there was no wind, we found that we could fill the fuel tank which gave an engine run of over two minutes by which time the model was a tiny cross in the sky, then there would be a repeat performance, the revs would rise, the model would stall, regain flying speed and return to land just a few metres away. I can still see the sun shining through those yellow wings. We flew that little free flight model for the whole afternoon. I didn’t know it then but I was addicted.

In the next three years a succession of free-flight and control line models followed but none had the same impression as the Cardinal. Then in 1963 I took my first girl to the pictures and for the next 25 years, aeromodelling gave way to sex and drugs and rock’n’roll and I’ll plead guilty to all three. In fact was still leading rock bands until 2008 before I realised that I no longer had the power and range that is required to perform this role. Besides there’s something rather ridiculous about a sixty year old man singing about making love “All Niiiight Looooooooooong!!!” I still have all the equipment and sometimes dream of forming one last band but the thought of organising everything puts me off. Maybe if somebody else…ah well, never mind.

Then in 1988 I was living in North Devon and saw a man flying a radio controlled model in a field. I stopped the car, walked over to him made some enquiries. I bought a kit, a St Leonard’s Models “Gemini” at an auction where I was buying furniture, bought an unused radio off a carpenter who was setting up “on his own,” and was given an Irvine 21 car engine by a kid who’d wrecked it. I got it to go and the rest as they say is history. The Gemini was not a success owing to my own lack of physical co-ordination. I put the engine and radio into a vintage Junior 60 which I covered in olive drab parachute silk which suited me much better. I swapped the Gemini for a damaged Telemaster, the 66” version with the plywood fuselage and that led on to other things!

Sometimes I think about making another Gemini to see whether, years later I will be able to fly it!

You know, if I typed that much in, by the time I got to the last sentence, something, I repeat, SOMETHING would happen that I would wipe it all out! LOL That's the downside of typing on a laptop, that damened touchpad in the middle.

Fortunately, this time it was mainly a question of copy and paste.

Leroy,

Where have you gone. One of the guys was asking about you at the CAM's field, It's been a while, stop in..........like to see you!

Bruce

So Telemaster you took up the airplane addiction over the drug addiction? Well airplanes don't do the harm the drugs will do (prop bites not included) but from my experience you're end up just as broke.

Flyer, I used to use drugs when I was younger but I was never addicted to them. As for the cost of aeromodelling, I've been getting a lot of pleasure from my last two building projects, the Fun-Fly and the Cardinal which cost £85 and £38 respectively, plus the cost of glues and covering materials. I could have reduced the cost even more by building from plans if I'd wanted to but it's nice to have parts cut out for you! Furthermore, with the trend towards powering small models with electric motors and large models with petrol engines, there are plenty of reasonably priced glow engines about. I bought a red Irvine 40 for £17 on eBay, delivered to France. I've also just bought a Kirby Cadet glider short-kit for less than £10. Aeromodelling has never been cheaper if you know how to build.

Exchange rate currently $1.30=£1.00 following the Brexit.