n00bs Gonna Build a Carden

[why_fly_high]

	Quote: Originally Posted by gareth.ky
	I just stepped off the airplane from a 4 day Florida vacation. So is no news good news?

Only if the airplane building fairies came in and worked on your plane while you were gone. You have one month until the OKC IMAC contest. Enough fooling around. Get to work!

Dan

[gareth.ky]

	Quote: Originally Posted by why_fly_high
	Only if the airplane building fairies came in and worked on your plane while you were gone. You have one month until the OKC IMAC contest. Enough fooling around. Get to work! Dan

No man, the airplane fairies were with me in FL at the open bar. Most of last week was a loss airplane wise. When I make some more progress I'll post it.

[gareth.ky]

How do you all cut big straight strips of covering?

I have a wide band and stripes that go down the side of the fuse. The only table I have that long is the build table. I don't have a ruler that long. Any Ideas?

[copycat]

Maybe a piece of angle alum. and a rotary cutter would work.

[buttface]

	Quote: Originally Posted by gareth.ky
	How do you all cut big straight strips of covering? I have a wide band and stripes that go down the side of the fuse. The only table I have that long is the build table. I don't have a ruler that long. Any Ideas?

I use a hand held grinder with a 4'' diamond blade. I use it to cut carpet too!

[gareth.ky]

	Quote: Originally Posted by buttface
	I use a hand held grinder with a 4'' diamond blade. I use it to cut carpet too!

U cant be serious??!! I think there should be some ceramic tools out there that never need sharpening that would be ideal for cutting covering. Going through bulk packs of razor blades seems so wasteful.

Not much progress to report. I'm on round #3 of sanding and filling. The cockpit got a dash panel mounted on some foam that looks pretty scale.

Need to find the right paint to do the cockpit interior. I tried 2 cans of the texture paint so far and no joy. The full scale 260 is all matte black while the 230 was pretty much lite gray/white. I'm thinking it might actually look really good as gloss lite gray:

Extra 260 Cockpit:

Extra 230 Cockpit:

[gareth.ky]

Will the sanding never end?????

Thin G-10 mounts for the switches:

I added some hardwood dowel to stop the stabs from digging into the sides. Things were already being crushed the few times I put it all together.

Cockpit is done. I used the Mercury foam safe CA and accelerator to stick the canopy down. Worked out pretty well. That stuff doesn't fog up even when kicked. The dash panel insert is a block of foam covered in 3mm black Depron.

[gareth.ky]

Bondo is some crazy stuff.

I had never used it before but I had this one spot I needed to fill and the balsa filler was not gonna cut it. Enter the Bondo. Its a polyester resin with a microbaloon filler. Its light weight and it sets up scary fast. You have maybe 3 minutes to get the stuff in place before its too late. You have to work in small batches and it only takes a tiny bit of the hardener to make the stuff set.

The good part is it cures hard which makes it ideal for trouble spots along corners where other fillers just disintegrate. It also sands well. It is easier to sand than wood glue or epoxy and almost as easy as poly glue.

The wings are in the prep stage prep (fill/sand) now. The fuse an empennage are all prepped (filled and sanded down to 600 grit) and ready to cover this weekend. I'm hoping I can get that much done in two days the finish the wings during the week.

[gareth.ky]

Got a start on the covering this weekend. Here is my setup, The build table is for cutting put the big pieces of covering and the dining table inside is the work table.

I covered the build table in some scrap vinyl flooring turned upside down. I think the backing is cardboard but its soft enough not to dull the rotary cutter. The rotary cutter is working out well so far. The table inside is covered in some polyethylene flooring underpayment to keep me from dinging the fuse or the table. I thought it was going to make a good cutting surface but it was too soft.

It took all weekend just to do the fuse! The yellow and red went pretty smoothly by the blue is a . I gotta quote Woodbutcher here: "Proper spelling is 'Mono Goat'. Cause the stuff is hard headed." Indeed. It took 3 attempts to get the fin done without any wrinkles. The blue just isn't shrinkable enough to deal with the compound curve and it was just a big mess.

I had to lower the temp when working with the blue. Also it seemed to help to use the heat gun along with the covering iron. The gun heats a larger area and helps shrink the stuff. The iron smooths it down. Your trying to strike this balance with the iron temp. Too low and the stuff just doesn't shrink. Too high and it makes the covering bubble up and puts nasty ripples in the surface. You need a higher temp to shrink the surrounding covering before you tack it down. the heat gun lets you set the iron temp lower and still shrink the surrounding covering. Make sense?

I was a little worried that the blue was too dark so i took a shot outside. It seems to get lighter in sunlight, looks good!

Day 1: Covering the sides:


Covering the bottom:


Day 2: Turtle Deck


Fin is done after 3 attempts:

There's also a little video.

[why_fly_high]

I see color! Looks good so far.

Dan

[TrojanMan]

Looking good!

[Vic3D]

That's the name of that blue? Is it monokote? Thanks!