Ultra Flash Fibreglass repair

Ouch !

The repair looks fairly light I understand there was some Pb in the nose. Just wondered if these aircraft are c of g sensitive and would you plan to rebalance the model statically before flight or "suck it and see"

Phil Ford wrote: You have put thin glass on the outside so after sanding, etc surely it will be slightly wider or is that a very minor issue at a 1mm?

The cloth on the outside is only there to temporarily reinforce the joints before glassing on the inside, so will mostly be removed when rubbing down afterwards.

Having said that the cloth I used is very thin, much less than 1mm and the outside is uneven anyway after the initial repair as it's impossible to line everything up perfectly. The filler will smooth everything anyway.

kevinross wrote: Ouch !

The repair looks fairly light I understand there was some Pb in the nose. Just wondered if these aircraft are c of g sensitive and would you plan to rebalance the model statically before flight or "suck it and see"

I will recheck the cg before flight, but don't expect it to be very different, most of the filler will be rubbed off before painting, so it won't add much weight.

I will put the original lead back in. I wanted to try moving the cg forward a little anyway, so the added weight will help with that.

Jon - Sorry to read of your incident, the nose acting as a crumple zone no doubt prevented
more serious damage.
I like the cleaver way you have repaired the nose, sadly the bank will claim other models.
Colin.

Thanks Colin, I'm afraid you're right, I don't think I'll be the last victim unfortunately

Slow progress over the past couple of weeks due to DIY but back on it and things starting to look a lot better.

After lots of filling/rubbing down/filling repeats, it was starting to look better, I used a sanding block and wet and dry to rub down as this will take the high spots off. When you get to the point that it seems quite good, a useful tip is to give it a coat of primer, or in this case primer filler, then rub down again, the filler being a different colour will reveal any existing low spots

While i was at it I also repaired the noseleg opening as it was slightly damaged by the previous owner, I am planning to put doors on it so this needed doing, bit of glass and epoxy followed by filler sorted this.

Although only one wingtip was damaged it the accident, the other had been badly scuffed underneath before I got it, so I have repaired both

So this week I have managed to get some paint onto it, so far white, purple and black are done, next is the silver and then lacquer.

So far I'm pretty pleased as the paint match is good enough, the Purple is very slightly darker, but by painting whole blocks, this isn't really noticable. The outside chequer on the underside of the wing is the new colour, but if you didn't know, I don't think you'd see the difference.

The black and white have blended perfectly.

Wing.

Excuse the state of the shed floor, masking and cleaning materials everywhere!!

If the rest of the painting goes well, she'll be back in the air very soon.