Gee Bee Dreamer Bipe

TooJung2Die

Master member
I highly recommend picking up a little sharpening stone like this - and never need to buy a second box of xacto blades :D
When I looked at the photos I thought you were going to say you coated the balsa with poly. The difference in color between the old wood and new is distinct. The honing stick is interesting. I'm using the same Xacto blade on the Apollo I used on the Sunbird. That was four balsa airplanes ago! I use a leather strop rubbed with metal polish during a build to keep the blade edge keen.
jon
 
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rockyboy

Skill Collector
Mentor
When I looked at the photos I thought you were going to say you coated the balsa with poly. The difference in color between the old wood and new is distinct.
jon

Yeah - I've added some newer balsa where the kit wood was missing or too soft and punky and it's a really different color!

Last night I finally got back to this and finished the base green on the wings.

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This roll of covering is a real pain in the butt too - it's an estate sale partial role so I don't know the specific brand, but the backing is like a wax paper and the adhesive is pressure and heat sensitive. The problem is the adhesive is so darn sticky it sticks to tools and fingers and balsa framing - and if you try to reposition the covering the adhesive tears out some of the green coloring! :mad: This is especially frustrating at the wing tips, and I'm considering cutting off the covering on two of them and trying again with a smaller piece of covering to handle, and just deal with having a seam. This stuff really makes me miss Ultracote or Monocote!
 
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TooJung2Die

Master member
This roll of covering is a real pain in the butt too - it's an estate sale partial role so I don't know the specific brand, but the backing is like a wax paper and the adhesive is pressure and heat sensitive.
It sounds a lot like the PVC covering that came on the Apollo I'm putting together. It has pressure sensitive adhesive. It's old film so heat reactivates the old adhesive. It behaves differently when shrinking. Does it sag a bit when you first heat it before tightening up? For some reason the instructions have a big warning not to use an iron on this film. Heat gun only. I used a sock covered iron without any problem where the film covered balsa sheeting. Does it give off a plastic smell when it gets hot?
 

rockyboy

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It sounds a lot like the PVC covering that came on the Apollo I'm putting together. It has pressure sensitive adhesive. It's old film so heat reactivates the old adhesive. It behaves differently when shrinking. Does it sag a bit when you first heat it before tightening up? For some reason the instructions have a big warning not to use an iron on this film. Heat gun only. I used a sock covered iron without any problem where the film covered balsa sheeting. Does it give off a plastic smell when it gets hot?

I think we might have the same kind of stuff! I found for some pieces it was easier to use a heat gun very gently - especially if I set it down with a significant ripple - and then seal it in with the iron, and then come back for final shrinking.

I made some more progress last night - this is the third attempt on the turtle deck, using 3 separate pieces the final time to get decent results.
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Really looking forward to being done with this covering!

Boys and girls - it's neat to get different colors from the swap meets, but stick to Monokote and Ultracote unless you really want a covering challenge! :cry:
 

Piotrsko

Master member
Covering might be FASSON thermoset in an unslit condition, especially if the paper is plain white. At the time, it was dirt cheap, like 2 bucks a roll. Really puncture resistant, lasts forever.
 

rockyboy

Skill Collector
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Covering might be FASSON thermoset in an unslit condition, especially if the paper is plain white. At the time, it was dirt cheap, like 2 bucks a roll. Really puncture resistant, lasts forever.

That might be the stuff - the paper backing is plain white - looks like wax paper for the kitchen. It's pretty tough too - even with a freshly sharpened blade it take a little pressure to poke holes to start a cut in the middle of a piece.
 

Piotrsko

Master member
That might be the stuff - the paper backing is plain white - looks like wax paper for the kitchen. It's pretty tough too - even with a freshly sharpened blade it take a little pressure to poke holes to start a cut in the middle of a piece.
Ok if it's fasson you end up doing it like upholstery, start in the center and stretch your way out. Btw don't overshrink it use only low heat. It will collapse the balsa.
 

rockyboy

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Ok if it's fasson you end up doing it like upholstery, start in the center and stretch your way out. Btw don't overshrink it use only low heat. It will collapse the balsa.

The start at the center tip is something that would have helped a lot about a week ago :ROFLMAO:

Doing the monokote style "tack down the outer edges and then seal the outer edges" process doesn't work that well with this. I'll make sure to try the center out on the next pieces and see if that helps out :D

And yeah - the high heat shrinking of this stuff is scary strong! I've had it pull up and detatch edges, ruining the piece of covering when doing the turtledeck.

Thank you!!
 

Piotrsko

Master member
Not to be cranky, but I didn't know you had issues about it until this morning. If you need mind reading , have to ask my SWMBO. She knew about my recent parts buy BEFORE the confirmation e mail arrived.

UP SIDE, if you use CA for assembly, when you crash, cut off one side and glue everything back in place.

We now return you back to the regular thread
 

rockyboy

Skill Collector
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Not to be cranky, but I didn't know you had issues about it until this morning. If you need mind reading , have to ask my SWMBO. She knew about my recent parts buy BEFORE the confirmation e mail arrived.

UP SIDE, if you use CA for assembly, when you crash, cut off one side and glue everything back in place.

We now return you back to the regular thread

Not cranky at all over here! Really appreciate the help and info!

Working from center out worked a lot better too - all done with the fuselage base colors now!

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rockyboy

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I wasn’t too crazy about the profile of the fuselage, but dang, watching this come together is very satisfying.

Thanks! I'm still a little iffy on that wide turtledeck to stabilizer transition myself, but I hope once the graphics are in place it'll seem better proportioned. But I'm building this to be a fun fly and sport flying biplane - not a scale beauty, so a little weirdness doesn't bug me too much :D

I did a mock-up assembly last night to cut all the hinge holes in the covered pieces - easier to do this before covering the control surfaces and losing track of where the hinge slots should be!

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I put the old cowling plug on the nose - and confirmed I don't like it :p

Can also see some ugly wingtip transitions from the green in these shots. Going to need to do some cleanup with thin strips of white on top of these.
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And here's putting a couple scraps of white sort of in place for the top graphics. Thinking to do 2 white pieces on each side of the wing a good bit wider than the triangular proportions of the scraps sitting there now. I've done a similar design before on my EVA, so to try something a little different I want to round off the pointy end of the white arrow and outline the pieces in a thin black pinstripe.

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I've also got a couple clean up things on the covering. I need to cut off one of the green wing tips on the top wing - maybe both - and redo them. They just didn't stretch out right, and I'd rather have a small hard to see seam than the bunched up wrinkle look. If I fail miserably at getting a smooth tip in green, I might need to switch to white for the wingtips.

I also need to clean up the leading edge color transitions - I didn't always get a clean straight cut on the green, so I need to go back over the edge with a thin piece of something - probably white since it's much easier to get a good finish with.

And if I'm going to do a black pinstripe around the white arrows, I need to figure out how I'm going to do an outline or drop shadow on the white graphics too so they don't look out of place. Not sure I want to just build up extra layers of vinyl to do it, but will do some research and see what works for other people on these.
 
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Piotrsko

Master member
Your tips may have to be like 3 pieces, front middle back. Not sure anybody can make wrinkle free tips with this covering. The turtle back is typical of aircraft that need more rudder
 

rockyboy

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Your tips may have to be like 3 pieces, front middle back. Not sure anybody can make wrinkle free tips with this covering. The turtle back is typical of aircraft that need more rudder

Glad to know I'm not alone in needing to piece out the wingtips on this! :D
 

rockyboy

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See what you mean, but if MY tips ever looked THAT good..........might be a sign of the apocalypse

:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:

OK - thanks for the compliments.

Maybe I'll stop trying to be such a perfectionist and just get it ready to fly like this. :unsure: Plenty more to do...
 

rockyboy

Skill Collector
Mentor
A good flying sport plane! Yes! That's what I like. Fly the wings off of it and make the pilot puke.

And it looks good too Rockyboy 😎

Thanks! Also, good reminder that I need to figure out a pilot figure for this... maybe a profile one like this...

royalty-free-world-war-ii-fighter-plane-clipart-image-picture-art--165548.gif


or fire up the printer for another Snoopy

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Loving the sunburst style on a biplane.
<- :)

Thanks! I keep coming back to the sunburst too - great for orientation and pretty easy to get good looking results! :D
 
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