Building

Don't you just love covering with Nylon and using cellulose shrinking dope? Building heaven! Much easier now that you can use an iron after using Balsaloc or similar as an adhesive. Just like covering with film except for the dope and fuel proofer bit at the end!
Is there a serious disease called "Can't stop building". Has anyone ever caught this and what is the remedy?

Been building since 1944, I thought perhaps 3-D printing might help cure it, but it doesn't, I even manage a sneaky hour or two in the shed in spite of the reproving looks from Missusladywoman. Building board, chocolate digestives and coffee to hand.....Magic!

Are you using a good old fashioned brush to apply the dope Denis? Its all too easy to overdo it. A tip from the old days, use a strip of the covering material, lay it on the surface to be doped, brush the dope through the strip, keep the strip moving. Stops the dope penetrating the surface of the fabric. One of the tricks used by the Wakefield fliers when the weight of the airframe was just four ounces maximum.

Building model aeroplanes has an effect on my diet. I eat Shredded Wheat for breakfast when I'm building small to medium sized models, however I switch to 1Kg boxes of Cornflakes when there's a large project on the building board. Nothing to do with healthy eating though, I use the cardboard from the boxes to make templates. My old Hannibal made me put on weight as I needed 3 X 1Kg boxes to make all the templates.

So today, it being Valentines Day I managed to get into the Inner Sanctum (Garage)! I managed to cut out a few bits of balsa for 4 Control Line Combat models which when this current Covid situation is over I hope to fly in a few competitions. It might be this year or next year we will see. The models are called Piranha (spelling by the designer). They are 36' wingspan with a chord of 11.5'' from front of leading edge to front of elevator. Power source will be a 3.2 cc engine, similar to an Oliver, but with more performance. Probably not as good handling though, we shall see. All up weight will be between 14-16ozs. I will be experimenting with coverings. Old fashioned Nylon, Coverall an iron on fabric that takes dope and also Mylar/Hobbyking film with tissue applied over the top. As I expect to smack a few models and the model limit is now only one per bout, I think I will build the first few to be a bit stronger rather than out and out performance i.e lightweight.
I'll post a few images of the finished models when all completed.

Nice to see you enjoying your balsa bashing Dennis

If you haven't bought the Sig coverall material, a modern replacement is DIACOV 1000 sold by Sarik which is believe is very popular with the LMA guys

www.sarikhobbies.com/product/diacov-1000...-for-model-aircraft/