AlW

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Hi Jeremy,
The Firebird looks great! Am looking forward to seeing it fly at Princeton - I plan to be there around mid-day Thursday.
Al Watson

Erik R

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Jeremy,

Your firebird is beautiful. I really need another one.
Good luck with the maiden. You will love it.

Erik

LGM Graphix

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Hi Al, I just hope my thermocouple arrives on time! Otherwise, I'll bring it, but it will just sit there

Erik, After all the years I waited to get a firebird, I am so happy to have one now, I hope to always have a firebird in my hangar!

David Searles

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You must have the eyes of an eagle! That color is gorgeous sitting on the ground, but I'd lose it about 1 minute after takeoff.

David S

LGM Graphix

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I'll let you know after I fly it how it goes haha. I think the airplane is big enough that it will be ok, and with the bright white on the bottom I should have good contrast. Here's hoping anyway!

LGM Graphix

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Hey Al,
Hows the Super Bandit coming? You got that ready yet?
Jeremy

LGM Graphix

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I had a question asked about laying out the checkers, I thought I would give my response in the thread so everyone could benefit from it!


The checkers were really easy to do. I use a product called Transfer tape. All I did was apply the tape to the bottom of the wing.
Then, once you decide how many squares you want, measure the area that you want the checkers to go in and divide that number by the number of squares you want. ex: if you want 4 squares tall, and your area to work in is 10" tall overall, each square will be 2.5" tall. Then for the length, I simply measured out the width of the overall area, and divided that by the 2.5" I came up with earlier. You may need to massage that number a little bit though. Lets say your width is 14.5", when you divide 14.5 by 2.5, you end up with 5.8. We don't want a square that is 20% smaller than the other 5, so round it up, make it 6 squares total, then take your 14.5 and divide by 6 squares and you get 2.42" wide, so make all of your squares that wide and it will look correct. (roughly 2 7/16")
Now you're halfway done. You will now have marks on one edge, and the bottom of the panel, you need to do the same measurements and math for the tip and the leading edge, connect the dots and you have your perfectly spaced pattern.

1: Using a product called transfer tape (It's used in sign shops for masking vinyl before application to a sign board. Basically it's a really wide paper masking tape. The stuff I buy is 15" wide.) cover the area you want your checkers to be on. Be careful not to get any wrinkles in the tape, make sure it's pressed down nice and smooth.

2. At the widest vertical point (in my case, the wing panel root) decide how many checkers you want, I wanted 4. Then measure the height of that area. For the sake of argument, we'll say the wing was 10" tall. Divide 10" by 4 squares. You will have a measurement of 2.5". That is the height of your checkers at the root.

3. Now, measure along the trailing edge of the wing the width for your checkers. If you want your checkers relatively square (which looks the best in my opinion) you need to take the width of the wing, and divide that by 2.5". This will give you the number of squares along the trailing edge. Lets however say that it's not a round number, lets say the trailing edge is 14.5", divided by 2.5 you end up with 5.8 squares. We don't want to have one square that is narrower than the rest, so we'll round that number up to 6 squares. Now take 14.5 (the width) and divide it by 6 squares. You will end up with 2.42" per square. (roughly 2 7/16" for easy numbers on a ruler)

4. Now you have to do the same thing with the leading edge of the wing. Measure the width, it will be a little different than the trailing edge due to the sweep, lets say you end up with 15" long, divide that 15" by 6 squares and you will get 2.5". Don't worry that the number is wider than the trailing edge, you won't end up with checkers that are wider at the front, due to the different length in the taper you will have consistently wide checkers.

5. Next measure the wing tip length and divide by the 4 checker spacing that we used on the root. Lets say the wing tip measures 7", divided by 4 checkers we end up with 1.75".

6. Mark out all of those intervals all around the panel, then using a straight edge, connect the dots, this will have your entire grid layed out.

7. Put an X in all the squares you want to remove for paint, trust me, put the X in or you will inevitably end up removing an incorrect square somewhere along the way.

8. Using a NEW Xacto blade, carefully cut through the paper transfer tape being very careful not to score the surface underneath. It sounds difficult but you can feel if you're not cutting deep enough, or if you cut to deep. Practice on something else if you're worried about it. You may go through 5 or 6 blades just doing to small wing panels, but make sure the blade stays sharp or it will not cut through the glue on the back of the transfer tape well and you'll end up pushing to hard and cutting into your underlying paint.

9. Remove the squares with the X in them, you are now ready to paint. Make sure all the edges of the other squares are pressed down tight and spray your checker color, use light coats, don't let it get to wet on the paper tape or build up to heavy on the edges.

10. Remove the rest of the masking before the paint is fully dry, if it does dry completely, you'll need to cut the edges again to ensure a nice clean crisp line on the checkers.

Good luck!

marvmattporsche

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LGM Graphix

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Wasn't sure if you had a question in this post and something didn't post correctly but I didn't want to miss something if you did

marvmattporsche

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Xairflyer

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Just found this thread very interesting, when you paint a gel coat fuselage, do you use a plastic primer first?

LGM Graphix

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No I don`t. A Gel coat isn`t a plastic substrate, it`s a painted surface stlil. The only time you use a plastic primer (adhesion promoter) is when you`re actually painting a plastic. Whether it`s a primed finish, gel coat, or respraying a painted in the mold airplane, my painting procedure is the same. The biggest reason a gel coat appears to have poorer adhesion is because most people don`t get all of the mold release wax off of it. For some reason the Gel coats seem to hold the wax harder. The biggest trick is to wash and degrease all of your pieces before you even start building, get the wax off of it as soon as possible. This is best done by first using hot water and an oil free detergent (the powdered Tide is the best I`ve found). Then using a wax and grease remover and scrubbing it. If you start sanding before you remove the wax you will just grind the wax into the surface making it even harder to work with. The painted in the mold models like C-ARF don`t seem to hold the wax as bad and are easier to clean, but I still use the same procedure just to be sure.

Xairflyer

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So would this be the same for bare fibreglass, or do I need an etch primer?

LGM Graphix

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Fiberglass is the same. The big trick with raw fiberglass is to make SURE you have cleaned and sanded it correctly. If the fiberglass is layed up with Epoxy resins then you really should use an epoxy primer on the surface. If you don`t have an epoxy primer you can use a regular high build, but I wouldn`t try spraying it over any finer sanding than 220 grit or adhesion will be an issue. Most etch primers won`t do anything on cured fiberglass. The downside to an etch primer is there is no build to it, so you have to spray the etch primer, then a high build anyway. You need to do this with an epoxy primer as well, but the benefit to the epoxy primer, is if you spray what is known as a `wet on wet`coat, your adhesion will be fantastic. To spray a wet on wet coat, you spray your piece with the epoxy primer, leave it sit about 15 minutes (just one coat) and then hit it with your 2 part high build primer such as K38. Once that all cures you have fantastic adhesion to tape over.

Xairflyer

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Thanks for help

flyinfool1

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Great old thread.
Unfortunately all of the video links are broken, BUMMER.

SkyKnight

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Hi Jeremy.
Your painting advice is fantastic! What do you recommend for these Airex or Airtex surfaces?