Originally Posted by emessys

Jim,

I would have thought the water based Polycrylic would swell the underlying balsa unless you first used a sanding sealer (laquer) first.

You haven't noticed any problems?

Ira

Hey Ira,

I have to second Jim's advice! Our mutual buddy introduced me to this method last year when I was finishing my Dalton. It worked FANTASTIC on the hatch, and I have since used it many times on my race places. First coat is light to seal and get the fabric down, I use a second coat as a bit of a filler, and then I use thinned filler to fill the weave before final sand and first coat of primer.

Originally Posted by TheTank

Hey Ira,

I have to second Jim's advice! Our mutual buddy introduced me to this method last year when I was finishing my Dalton. It worked FANTASTIC on the hatch, and I have since used it many times on my race places. First coat is light to seal and get the fabric down, I use a second coat as a bit of a filler, and then I use thinned filler to fill the weave before final sand and first coat of primer.

I've got others telling me it lifts/bubbles when exposed to the sun.

Ira

Originally Posted by emessys

I've got others telling me it lifts/bubbles when exposed to the sun.

Ira

Then they didnt do it right, unfortunately, and the problem probably lies with the prep before the glass was layed down, or in the primer/paint combination I am sorry to say. Mine is on my Dalton 300. Mine sat in the sun for full days, many weekends, with no cover at IMAC contests last year and it is still as good as Day 1.... Also, my pattern ships and race planes are done this way without issues. After the glass was layed, prepped, and primed. It was sprayed with DuPont Chroma-base.

Originally Posted by TheTank

VERY NICE JIM! Can't wait to see it. Also.... we built a paint booth in a buddies basement for painting our race planes because we didnt want to wait for warm weather. I'm just not sure if it would fit in there! How long are the booms?!?!?

Hey John, thanks for the offer but Ron from Metal Morphus has offered me the use of his booth. If you get a chance go check out his plated Ziroli P38 on RCU. It's sweet!
Sounds like you're really getting into the racing stuff. Or do you just like smashing planes at 150 mph?! LOL

Been real busy sanding and priming and sanding and ......
So here's a few pics of the progress. I got these real sweet wing fillets from Ron that fit perfect. As you can see the center area is almost ready for the final coat. Then assy before final priming and sand and priming and ...

I found this thread and read it forward to back all the way to, sanding? C'mon man I need pictures of the finished product. The last post was months ago! I have been doing the 3D stuff for a few years and I have an itch to build something. Not of this caliber, not there in skills, but I like this plane. Finished yet???

Originally Posted by GravyGoodness

I found this thread and read it forward to back all the way to, sanding? C'mon man I need pictures of the finished product. The last post was months ago! I have been doing the 3D stuff for a few years and I have an itch to build something. Not of this caliber, not there in skills, but I like this plane. Finished yet???

I've been trying to get to it but during flying season it's tough to get the time to work on it. I just got it back from a buddy of mine at Metal Morphus (he has a build thread on RCUniverse) who spayed it with feather fill primer in his spray booth. It fills in a lot of the little stuff. Now I just need to DA sand it to get it ready for final paint and clear coat.

Glad to hear it. Good luck finishing it out.

All righty then. Finally got back to the P-38 after a great summer of flying! That last couple of days I've gotten a bunch of the sanding done and started gluing the boom doors in place. What a pain getting the doors to move correctly. Here are some pics:

I was amazed to see this bumped to the top of my subscribed threads! Glad to see you back on the job, I need to get to work on my Gee Bee myself....

Got a little more done. The engines are mounted and Now I'm fitting the cowls the backplate. Since the cowls are parallel to the firewall and the engines are not I added a seam of epoxy to the end of the cowl then add sand paper to the back of the spinner plate and spin it until it sands flush.

Subscribed...

Originally Posted by RollingHarrier

Got a little more done. The engines are mounted and Now I'm fitting the cowls the backplate. Since the cowls are parallel to the firewall and the engines are not I added a seam of epoxy to the end of the cowl then add sand paper to the back of the spinner plate and spin it until it sands flush.

Dat dare is straight up Jean-I-us.
Nice work there skipper.

It's starting to take shape there Jim.Those DA 50's will be sweet sounding for sure.
I can't wait to see it fly.

what kind of exhuast are you planning??

tony