Welcome! It’s been awhile since my last post. With a mixture of lock down, furlough, then very busy with work and other stuff, my posting has slowed down quite considerably. But when time allows, I still cut that balsa and throw those planes!
I finally managed to start covering the Boulton Paul jet. Of course I couldn’t get Polyspan covering anywhere but I was able to get Mylar and tissue, so that’s what I decided to use.
Tell you what, covering with Mylar produced a really cool looking and satisfying finish to the wings and tail. They looked wicked with that clear stuff stuck on and shrunk tight. The hard and surprisingly difficult bit though was getting the tissue to be equally nice and smooth. You see I had never tried this two-layer covering method. When I came to do it, everything I read offered different methods and techniques to achieving a really good result. My results though were definitely mixed!
Nice tight Mylar covering….
….pretty pleased with the lightweight tissue on top of the Mylar – but I got creases once doped :_
Consequently, I got a few creases and wrinkles in the tissue once I covered them with 2 coats of dope. I tried water shrinking after applying the covering which didn’t work and to top it off, the huge container of cellulose thinners I bought from eBay for thinning the dope was rubbish. Great for cleaning out brushes, but that’s about it. So the finish was a bit disappointing… until I started the spray painting! Boy that yellow paint is good and bright!! It really helped cover up all the blotches in the doped finish, prior to painting.
Now that is bright!
Even though it’s supposed to be a semi scale model I’m not that fussy about what the exact colour it should be – It just needs to be close. It’s a sport model after all. 🙂
just one feature of a semi-scale model… in this case, enlarged intake opening.
getting the black stripe down.
So check out the pics. It really does look amazing. My brother was like.. “that fin is massive!” The model just looks really good from all angles. And even better, I took it out for a test glide about a month ago before painting and after a few balance and trim surface adjustments,it flew beautifully… So I’m super-stoked to get it finally done, with some basic insignia markings etc., which will be printed decal sheet when can get round to do it. And I’m also really looking forward – if a little nervously – to powered flight!
…and the award for the messiest work bench goes too…!!
even in the rain the colour just pops!
starting to add the glazing which is from perfume acetate packing. The glue eventually dries transparent
some strong looking shapes here… yes that fin looks huge!
this is my favourite angle!
taking over the table
the business end…!
Hope you like the pics. Next up, markings engine run and fly time 🙂 Wish me luck!