OK, lost the camera for a while.

so, after finishing the wing covering, there was this little problem, the overlap of the fabric covering.

No problem, just paint a little primer on the overlaps and sand down, right? That's what I thought. In reality, the primer went on OK, but when I sanded it, the solartex finish was scuffed up. Then I painted it, and the damage was visible because of the nice shiny epoxy finish. At first look, it is fine, but I will have to re-finish spots with 400 wet and then re-spray. No big deal.

And, I decided to do the canopy in Yellow Rit dye.

OK, so progress, no matter how slow, is steady.

This part of a build always bogs down for me. So much detail, so little worth sharing on a build thread. OK, here's a shot of the install of the nose gear steering. Not much I can say, it is really very basic. Cut a slot, CA the nyrod outer, fill in the blanks with Epoxolite, sand smooth. Any questions?

Moving rearward, Took about 4 or 5 nights to do all the fillets around the tail section. Again, nothing fancy, just basic building. Here's how it goes:

Mix Epoxolite
Smear lots into corner with craft stick
Run craft stick once down the center, slow and heavy.
Use scrap wood to scrape the excess from the thin edges
drip several drops of water onto semi-finished fillet
Use wet finger to do final smoothing
Next day, touch up with 220 grit sandpaper

Ready for primer.

Looking good Nic!

Question? What's the manufacturer of the nose gear link you're using?

Jim

Hi Jim,

The firewall brackets are Du-Bro, the gear leg is a tower Kaos 40 replacement set, and a Du-bro EZ mount steering arm. Here's a link for the arm: http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXD848&P=7

Thanks, Nick. I'll have to check the LHS after work for these.

Jim

Tonight at the grocery store I found RIT yellow dye (woot!)
Also decided to cut the hinge slots before painting, never hurts to have a little more fuel proofing in the recesses.

Let me just say,

"NOTE TO SELF"
do not put plastic canopy in boiling dye water. Let the water cool first.

I remember dying canopies in the past. I must have forgotten that you need to cool the mixture first. Oh well, replacements have been ordered.

Sir! That looks like something I would do!! Made me chuckle with the reminder that we're all human....Thanks for doing this build thread and for posting this pic!

Yes, this thread has several of my "oops" in it. Hey, I'm not perfect. I must admit, I do like the color of the yellow canopy, I think it will look good on the finished Perigee when I dye the next one.

So last Saturday I'm placing my order w/ Tower for the canopy, and I decided - Hey, just get two! So I did, and they arrived today.


I have multiple agendas here:

Spare in case I happen to F#$% another one up
Dye one yellow and one blue, and then decide which looks best (yes, I bought 2 colors of RIT)
Hey, maybe I'll need another in the future.

Have now hinged the tail, stay posted.......

For those faithful followers, no explaination needed!

not being one of those faithful followers, but that looks like a canopy dyed in lukewarm[sm=teeth_smile.gif] yellow water to me.

david

yes, yes it is. Reference posts #210-213

it was an underhanded comment to those posts[sm=teeth_smile.gif] [sm=teeth_smile.gif]!

david

Oh, duh!

This may be old hat to some, but if I can help a newbie, I'm glad.

Problem: How to paint both sides of a control surface and still be able to hold it?

Answer: Use the hinge slots. stuff a length of 1/32 ply, then CA to scrap wood handle. Photo kinda shows it all.

I do that, only I use hinge points, so I put a 1/8" dowel in the holes I drill in the plane to hold it and glue the dowel to a 2x4 with CA to hold them in place while I am painting it. Put a dowel in the fin with a bigger chunck of wood in the nose and you can paint the fuse and just roll it around while painting. Works great. Take a peice of wood and make a V notch in it on both ends the size of the dowel and you have a very stronge support for painting. You can paint the whole fuse in one go like that.
Ed

So here's the proof, hanging up to dry.

Notice the color of the primer has changed......I decided to shoot a quick rattle can of grey lacquer, it shows the defects better than the white. Later I will putty up the spots and sand, sand, sand. I even did the body. Notice the fillets on the tail section.

Bad things - after three days, the grey primer still is clogging the sandpaper, wet or dry. It just didn't dry correctly, feels a little rubbery. Now this is the same can I have used before on other (plastic) projects, and it dried fine overnight. I suspect some chemical thing with the epoxy primer.

Nothing to do but get the thinner and wipe the entire plane clean. It took me half a roll of paper towels, 2 cups of thinner and about an hour and a half. What a messy, stinky job. *sigh*

Shot another coat of epoxy primer last night, and it looks good.

OK, so I haven't posted in a week, here's what's happening:

I shot more epoxy primer then even more, and sanded it down, I'm sick of sanding, and if it isn't like a baby's bottom, so be it. I'm going to start shooting color.

As soon as I get back from this business conference, that is. I'm in Key West tonight, won't be home until the 9th.

Oh man, what a drag- wiping off bad primer. Sorry to hear about the mess. Was it the lacquer primer that didn't dry well? I've had trouble with white Plasticote primer balling up and clogging sandpaper (wet sanding), but never any problem with grey of any brand- Duplicolor, Plasticote nor the couple other brands I've tried. I love using that stuff on plastics, and have gone to using it about anywhere else because it's dried well and been reliable underneath the paints I've tried. Looking forward to seeing your color coats. Some would stop working on a plane after a mishap like that.