Some friends and I are about to buy a few 90 sized pattern planes and the plane comes with a fiberglass fuse and foam core wings. So far it seems that most folks paint the fuse and cover the wings. Has anybody tried glassing and painting the wings? It seems to me that if you glassed with poly and since you are only glassing half the plane that you could it without a big weight penalty. Is this doable or is the weight gain too much?

Be careful about glassing foam cored wings with polyester. The Styrene monomer in the resin may melt the foam. (depending on what foam it is).
Provided you used a very light cloth and the minimum possible resin (Ideally by vacuum bagging) the weight gain is most likely acceptable. Why would you bother though?

I would glass w poly, less weight and no problem with melting the wing cores.

I have done once with glassing with thinned Epoxy to smooth the fb cloth with. A lot of work involved. Personally, I would rather go with covering route for the wings. Easy, lighter, and more time on flying.

Been there, done that. Covering with monokote is lighter by far, than going the thinned epoxy and then painting route.

Check out Don Ramseys website (go to www.nsrca.org ) for the link. Don has a great video for sale that explains step by step how to glass wings and paint with minimal weight gain.

Chuck

Gentlemen, nobody is listening. He is NOT using epoxy to anchor the cloth, he wants to use Minnwax Polycryllic.

Yes it has been done, weights seem to be similar to film coverings from what I have been reading. Definitely lighter than epoxy... The only thing to know is that the PolyC and latex paints are NOT glow fuel proof. You need a laquer or two part clear over your color coats to fuelproof and seal it. The PolyC is not as hard as epoxy and a bit more subsceptible to hangar rash, but much tougher than films.


Mark

Back in the 70's we would use 3/4 oz fiberglass cloth and resin over the entire plane, then spray w/ epoxy paint. Finished weights were about 7.5 lbs., and totally fuel-proof.

why cant he use the SAME technique as epoxy to get a light finish????

He can.... that's the beauty of it. I don't care much for iron on plastic films for Pattern models. Plastic film is great on trainers though.

The technique I prefer is proven over decades finishing control line models to Concours level finish.... Silkspan and dope. With care it is lighter than plastic film.

Epoxy paint like KlassKote is an excellent alternate material to dope for laying down silkspan and finishing. I described the method in the KF about 4 years ago.

MattK

wake up call
the resins and paints we used in them thar gud ol days - has skyrocketed in cost.
K&B paints -once my favorite- were reformulated to reduce use of nasty stuff and th result was -frankly - a disaster .
auto paints are now the best - a epoxy primer ,a base coat , clear coat job can be drop dead good looking and repairable!!
first tho - do a full cost breakdown - you may change your mind.
I showed up at a control line stunt contest in Phoenix -in late sixties with a Monocoted foam winged model - It flew fine but it was the ONLY Monokote model there. everyone else had built and painted their models - hanging from their heels in a freezer and rubbed out the finishes with unborn hummingbird wings etc. etc..
the old silk n dope were also terrific but for serviceability- iron on is the future.

I persoally like the glassed fus, iron on wings as the fus will always get fuel soaked/ wrinkel but the wings seem to last for years with the Monocote finish. But as for price, I can't even guess what one would pay for unborn hummingbird wings now days,? but I was shocked at the price of monokote(moneykote) last time I went to pick some up at the hobby shop. Matt