Winter build project: Wolfgang Matt’s ATLAS

Hopefully Phil and Steve are not far behind me on their builds, well Steve at any rate, Phil has apparently taken a sabbatical on his Atlas, I'm not sure he's even ordered the wood yet, or the pins he's supposed to be getting for me :whistle: Typical isn't it, he was the one who sidled up to me when Mike had built his Blue Angle and said,

Bye heck man, nout rong with tat, happens we ourt to build ous one of em.

Which I took to mean,

My good man, what a fabulous plane, and how perfect a project for us, we could sure do with a fine precision plane such as that to truly enjoy our days flying!

That comment made me laugh so much I fell off my chair.

However, my dear young man, you have left yourself open to some grammatical error corrections. In Northern lingo "nout" is spelt "now't or nowt". Also when did Mike build a Blue Angle? Does this one fly off at a tangent?

Although defending Phil C, he has been busy with a kitchen refurb recently although I don't think that excuse will hold over the length of time so far. Anyway I have a feeling a Bleriot may have taken priority.

Sorry had Angle on the brain as I was trying to work out in º what angle to put on the control surfaces so that I have enough throw... all done now... in fact I'm not sure there is anything left to do but get covering. I feel there must be something I've over looked.

Alas it's not the first time I've called Mike's Blue Angel a Blue Angle.

With the covering iron, I've got a cotton sock for it, but when doing my little bit's of covering repair the sock always gets loose and hard to see where the edge of the iron is. Is it strictly necessary? What's it's purpose?

Forget the sock for now . Tack film edges on a low to medium temp. When happy then use highrr heat to glue down. I then use the high heat settings with the sock to make the film go tight. Also I use sock run over bubbles and wrinkles This only a rough guide, some may do it different.

Chris, I believe the sock is to stop the iron scratching the covering (The shiny side )

Only time I use a sock is when covering film on film, you need to press down on it to make sure you don't trap any air.

For normal covering, just make sure you keep the face of the iron clean and it shouldn't scratch. It is easier to control the temperature and see what you are doing without it.

Use a low heat to tack the edges down then turn it up to shrink but use a cloth in the other hand to smooth down only using the iron to heat. Alternatively shrink with a heat gun but be very careful to only apply enough heat to shrink.