Elder 60 Restoration

[rockyboy]

With a bad case of "waiting for boxes to arrive" I painted some early-ish British roundels on the bottom. I've found that a good heavy stock 2018 calendar makes great paint masking templates.

Yep - that's close enough for guvmint work! Slightly off center on the right side, but that's because I scraped the wet paint a little bit pulling up the paint mask and had to spray some extra blue to cover up the ugly. But it's on the bottom - and it's on Snoopy's plane - so I'm going to keep it this way as character

So the list of boxes I'm waiting for...

- Box with another can of the creamy colored Ironlak paint to finish the bottom of the ailerons
- Box with 4-40 ball style control rod ends for the servo horns. Turns out these fancy aluminum ones are threaded with some pretty big holes and just using a normal clevis leaves a whole lot of slop on the connection.
- Box with the cheap-o detail spray gun to paint the top of the wing

 

[Wildthing]

View attachment 133599 View attachment 133600

You are going to make that wing so pretty you might have to redo the fuse

 

[rockyboy]

You are going to make that wing so pretty you might have to redo the fuse

Planning on it!

I'm thinking to alter the shape of the turtle deck around the cockpit to be more pointed like a doghouse roof and do it up as red wood slats too!

Not sure what to put on the tail or sides as squadron markings though.. maybe something with Woodstock?

 

[willsonman]

.. maybe something with Woodstock?

Teletubby

 

[rockyboy]

A couple boxes arrived - finished painting the ailerons and hooked up the control rods.

Still need that spray gun to tackle the top.

 

[rockyboy]

Still waiting for the spray gun so I peeled the covering from the fuselage next.

And started building Snoopy's dog house...

 

[bracesport]

@rockyboy - I love how you refer to 'your shop' - I am currently building in the garage - certainly does not sound as nice - fabulous build!

 

[OliverW]

@rockyboy - I love how you refer to 'your shop' - I am currently building in the garage - certainly does not sound as nice - fabulous build!

The nice thing about having a shop is that it is massive. The bad thing is if you dont stop cleaning it, it becomes a disaster zone!!!!

 

[rockyboy]

@rockyboy - I love how you refer to 'your shop' - I am currently building in the garage - certainly does not sound as nice - fabulous build!

The nice thing about having a shop is that it is massive. The bad thing is if you dont stop cleaning it, it becomes a disaster zone!!!!

Well... it might sound nice and massive to have a "shop" - but I'm really just trying to fool myself into thinking it's bigger than it is too.

I've got a workshop space that's 8'-6" x 13'-0" or 2.6m x 3.96m and I'm very happy and grateful that I do have that much space. But it's too narrow to be an actual one car garage here in the US (which does keep the wife from parking in it) and crammed full of stuff from multiple hobbies I've had over the years. I built my Lowrider CNC to double as a workbench and put it on wheels so it can move around because there isn't enough room to walk around the bench/Lowrider and get to the things I've hung on the walls and ceiling everywhere.

And yeah, I always need to do more cleaning

 

[OliverW]

My dad keeps his workbench clean at all times! I dont get how he does it.

 

[rockyboy]

Ohh... Nice shop! Could pack a whole lot of kits and planes in there!

Got the dog house built and covered the fuselage last night.

The box with the paint sprayer finally arrived, but there is a club meeting so tonight so no painting till Friday.

 

[OliverW]

Ohh... Nice shop! Could pack a whole lot of kits and planes in there!

Got the dog house built and covered the fuselage last night.

View attachment 134097
The box with the paint sprayer finally arrived, but there is a club meeting so tonight so no painting till Friday.

Thanks! We are always hunting for more kits....

 

[Jackson T]

Yes, this is an iron on cloth that is lighter in weight than fabric for full scale aircraft, but made by the same company in Germany. The weights can be difficult to find, but somewhere I saw a chart from somebody who bought and weighed a whole bunch of them. Once I find it again I'll put the link up here. In general the fabric ones (Oratex / Solartex) are heavier than Ultracoat which is heavier than Monocoat which is heavier than Coverrite which is heavier than Hobby King's budget covering which is heavier than Coverlight, which is heavier than Solite.

The Hobby King stuff also need a lower temperature iron compared to pretty much all of the others which makes is very useful to apply over foam without melting the airplane in the process!

The paint seemed to be adhering well so I did the rest of the bottom of the wing.
View attachment 133445

Think I'm gonna need a clear matt top coat on this.

I've never heard of iron-on fabric! Would it work to use spray paint with standard shrink wrap style covering film?

 

[bracesport]

go Snoopy go!

 

[rockyboy]

I've never heard of iron-on fabric! Would it work to use spray paint with standard shrink wrap style covering film?

I haven't tried spray paint on normal Monocote / Ultracote or similar shrink covering - but I've read quite a few accounts of people that had a good experience with it and it's on my list of things to try soon - I'm planning to change the color of my Ugly Stick soon

Generally the process I plan to follow is cleaning first with isopropyl or rubbing alcohol, then using a light coat of a Rustoleum white primer like this one that's meant to bond to plastic and then use my normal spray paints (I like Ironlak and Montana for best opaque coverage in one coat)

 

[willsonman]

While I do like Montana paints, they are thicker. Watch your distance to your surface when applying. That paint is intended for tagging and other art applications so be mindful that the paint delivery is much faster. Great for foamboard to cover up brown and such but yeah, I'd be careful. I tried it for the Bugatti and found this all out and ended up spraying a color swatch and getting the color matched at the Home Depot. The paint delivery was just so heavy.

 

[rockyboy]

While I do like Montana paints, they are thicker. Watch your distance to your surface when applying. That paint is intended for tagging and other art applications so be mindful that the paint delivery is much faster. Great for foamboard to cover up brown and such but yeah, I'd be careful. I tried it for the Bugatti and found this all out and ended up spraying a color swatch and getting the color matched at the Home Depot. The paint delivery was just so heavy.

Completely agree with your point that it's a heavier paint delivery. I do feel better about getting one coat coverage with the Montana and Ironlak paints rather than the three or four coats I need with other rattle cans and still feeling like it's spotty coverage (or maybe it's just I've been buying cheap spray paints and better technique would help).

Another thing I really like about the artists spray paints is they have about 4 different interchangeable spray nozzle designs that have different spray patterns - super narrow and heavy to very wide and fuzzy, oval to vertical line. The ability to buy nozzles separately is really awesome too - I have thrown away too many 3/4 full cans of Krylon or Valspar spray paint when the nozzle clogs and I can't find a working one.

I'm really hoping that with the "real" automotive detail spray gun that just arrived and thinning out latex house paints with Windex I can figure out how to get good coverage without such a thick coat of paint - looking forward to trying this out in the next couple days

 

[Bricks]

I am fortunate as I do body work and have access to any color I like, I have had great success using basecoat, clear coat over white monocoat for my gas glow planes.

 

[rockyboy]

A story in pictures.

Last night.

Looking good - feeling good!

Behold the second place winner and crowd favorite of the fly-in at 1:00pm!

But later in the day the wings clapped on the downwind turn after takeoff. Snoopy bailed out over hostile territory and is still missing in action.

Please join me in a moment of silence for our missing pilot.



We convened a local chapter of the NVRC Safety Board for an after-incident review, and determined that the lack of sheer webbing in the wing is the primary cause of the initial structural failure, with the remaining damage occurring on impact into Mt. Trashmore. Plane is being salvaged for parts. Damage is extensive and as a barn rescue there are no plans to go from to reconstruct the damage and I just don't have the desire. This power plant will fit nicely into another restoration project I have in the workshop.

But let's celebrate Snoopy's last flight in this plane today - it was a pretty one!

 

[Wildthing]

A story in pictures.

Last night.
View attachment 134321
Looking good - feeling good!
View attachment 134322

Behold the second place winner and crowd favorite of the fly-in at 1:00pm!

View attachment 134323

But later in the day the wings clapped on the downwind turn after takeoff. Snoopy bailed out over hostile territory and is still missing in action.
View attachment 134324

Please join me in a moment of silence for our missing pilot.



We convened a local chapter of the NVRC Safety Board for an after-incident review, and determined that the lack of sheer webbing in the wing is the primary cause of the initial structural failure, with the remaining damage occurring on impact into Mt. Trashmore. Plane is being salvaged for parts. Damage is extensive and as a barn rescue there are no plans to go from to reconstruct the damage and I just don't have the desire. This power plant will fit nicely into another restoration project I have in the workshop.

But let's celebrate Snoopy's last flight in this plane today - it was a pretty one!

Awwww, sorry to hear that