SA Edge 540

[Uncle Brett]

Bobby, nice to see your progression on the Edge. Tommy is the shiz when it comes to the StevensAero planes. If you haven't seen the videos of him flying his Edge or Groove maybe he will post them here, there great.
Covering can be pretty intimidating the first time, but it gets progressively easier every time you do it. There's a great thread on covering that you can get good tips from here on FG. It's under the thread; BBW (Carden Edge 300 (prototype) ) done by Dsp Dave who is arguably one of the best builder/coverer's there is, its on the last 5 pages or so. Even though it's about covering a 40% plane, the techniques still apply.
Dude, your build is looking great, keep us up to date.

[Bobbydog]

Thanks for the link to the covering thread bro. Yeah I learned alot this time. I covered my Mini-Flash before but that was with Solite and all solid colors. (pic below) This Sig Aerocote lite is sooo much harder to use I found. It wants to curl really badly. If I was setup with some corkboard or pin board and some drafting type gear it might not have been soo frustrating. The kitchen table just doesnt cut it. Not enough room and trying not to cut lines in the table. The wife said something like "If you cut my table I'll cut your balls off!!" So I was pretty carefull. Anway, I'm no quitter so I beat the plane into submission!

I'm still not sure if I'm happy with the color scheme, hopefully it doesnt blend in with the sky. I never even thought about that untill the fuse was done. It still needs some stripes on the tail section and maybe the pants. I'll have to think on it. If anyone has some ideas feel free to jump in. I'm pretty much done covering, just need to start on the cowl and canopy. I'd better quit yakking and get to work!

Bob

[Highlights]

Ah man, that looks great. Now go to brandsoftheworld.com download some of your favorite logos. Go with a theme. Colours must be consistent. I see maybe holographic or silver with lime and white. With navy as the base it would definitely pop out.. You could keep it traditional with red or white as accents to black. Put some pin stripes on as well. Go with brand names of the various RC equipment you use. It is limitless. Once you dress it up that thing will be awsome.

Mark

[Bobbydog]

Thanks Mark. I'll go check out that site for sure. What do you guys do print your logo's out then trace them on some covering? I'll give that a shot. Later

[Dave_ORCC]

Bob,

That looks awesome!! Nice job I think you've got enough of a contrast on the top and bottom of the wing to tell the difference. Look close at a lot of IMAC or Pattern planes and you'll notice most of them follow the theme you've chosen. ie: a Tip-to-tip pattern on top and nose-to-tail on the bottom. I've done almost the exact same thing on mine and I got the idea from Scott Stoops' Edge. Just my opinion, and it doesn't really mean anything but, you could probably use some sort of accent on the fuse and tail.

As Mark said, you could find a logo you like and incoporate that into the scheme. Print out the logo, cut it out of covering material or if you know someone with a vinyl cutter that makes things real easy.

Anyway, awesome work!! Keep it up, and keep posting. Looking forward to the flight report.

Cheers,
Dave

[Highlights]

Sorry, should have said in my post. Yeah, I just take a cd-rom to my local speedpro sign shop. I usually spend $25-$65 on small planes like that and up to $100-$150 on the big stuff. really depends how elaborate you want to get. Here are a few samples.

Vinyl really is the way you want to go . Very easy to use. Multiple layered ones tend to get a little tricky, especially if it your first go at is. Large vinyls can be daunting. You really only get one attempt at it. Trying to lift a decal back off just distorts it.

[tommy321]

Lookin' great Bob... Looks like you have nothing to excuse from your covering job. Let me tell you, there are few people who can post a close up picture of covered wheelpants like that ... Nicely done!

All the decals on my M&M Edge were done by printing on avery label paper with a colour laserjet printer. I have access to one at work so that's easiest for me, and the colours are still vibrant after two years of use (including rainy day flying). Dave's Toyota stuff was done in vinyl. Another option is the "all covering" route. Check out some of the articles by Martin Hunter on RCGroups for some impressive hints on how to layer colours into intricate designs.

Put three more flights on my Edge today from the golf course near my house. Winds were dead calm and it was warm enough to fly without bundling up. The blenders and KE spins that this aircraft does still make me grin after all this time. Only incident was a broken counter balance when I was doing a harrier landing onto the little spot of grass on the golf course green. Oh well... it's happened before... I can fix it.


Tom

[Bobbydog]

You know the biggest thing I've learned in this covering process is exactly how much time all you guys have spent on your planes. I expected to spend a night or two tops to get this thing covered and trimmed out but I realize now that it takes much longer to get some really cool results. I'm not the type to just throw something together and go fly it, not that there is anything wrong with "Go before show".

I ordered the Flying Giants ETOC disk set last month, I recieved a couple nice big Flying Giants decals with the vids. (Which were absolutely sick by the way) I'll be putting them on along with some other brand name stickers I've got. I really like the vinyl idea but I'm thinking that this plane just needs some white stripes/trim to finish it off. This plane reminds me of a 69' Camaro a buddy of mine had with the racing stripes and pearly blue paint. My next plane will be alot more creative. I picked up some white vinyl trim for cars at Canadian tire today. Couple different sizes. Should work out good I hope.

Every one of your planes look tight Mark. Way above my skill level atm.

Bummer about your elevator Tom, although if I tried to do a harrier anything that close to the ground there would be alot more damage than that! I've read through the first 150 pages of Bill Stevens thread at RCGroups and seen your planes covering posts. Very creative stuff. You must have been paying attention in art class, I was always in a "different world" during art class.

Thanks for the input everyone. I'll post more pics tomorrow night. Peace.

Bob

[Highlights]

Canadian Tire pinstriping rocks. I have almost every colour and width. It is easy to work with and does dress up a plane very nicely.

Your going to love that plane.

Hey, SHOW and GO

[Bobbydog]

Glad to hear that someone else has tried it already. I just finished covering my cowl but it looks like crap. The covering pulls up in spots and even though I was as carefull as possible I have air bubbles trapped all over the place. I'm going to peel it off and paint it white I guess. Its not what I really wanted but I dont think I"ll be able to match that covering with paint. Hopefully it doesnt look stupid. Grrrr. Anyway, I'll post some pics when its done. Peace.

Bob

[tommy321]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Bobbydog
	I'm not the type to just throw something together and go fly it, not that there is anything wrong with "Go before show".

What me? I NEVER fly an airplane before all the detail work is done. Scept for maybe the one time that's shown in the attached picture. I build my planes to fly first... look pretty second

I agree that covering these plastic cowlings is not the way to go. I covered my first Groove cowling (which is a much simpler shape) and wasn't satisfied with the result.

It might be worth a shot to drop by michael's craft store and see if they have a blue plastic paint that is at least close to your pearl blue covering. Bring a scrap of covering with you when you go. Unless you're anal about your planes it doesn't have to be an exact match to look good. I just got their Krylon Yellow and it turned out to be close enough to the Solite Yellow for me. The two will fade over time anyways.

...or... if you're painting the cowl white you could iron on trim stripes of blue covering. I think that stripes of blue will be much easier to stick to the cowling than a solid blue finish.

...or... you could add some white covering to the fuse to in some sort of pattern to make the white cowl/blue fuse transition a more pleasing shape.

There are options.

Tom

[tommy321]

One more thing I just though of.

Be really careful if you use spray paints on these cowlings. Test on a scrap first. Some sprays use solvents that melt and warp the light plastic in this cowl.

I found that even the Krylon "safe for plastic" spray I got from Michaels would cause some minor warping if I tried to put on too thick a coat at once. Make sure you do several really thin coats if you're worried about the paint attacking the plastic.

Tom