It’s early 2020 right now, but this post was written last year, so it’ll make sense. Enjoy!
Hey whats happenin’ people! it’s a short one this time, as where finally approaching the finishing line on the Natsneez build!
I’ve finally got the whole airframe built, including the undercarriage with wheels and fairings, plus the leading edge slats which turned out to look pretty cool. I was unsure how to build these at first but muddled through it and the came out great. It’ll be interesting to see how well they work 🙂
Well as far as the covering goes I decided to cover the fuselage completely in lightweight tissue doped on and the wings and tail in lightweight silk, which I bought from a local Indian fabric supplier.
How did it go? The tissue when on like a dream and the finish is really good. The Silk however was a little more challenging to put on and after doping, the finish is not great. There are loads of bubbles and wrinkles everywhere on the wings and tail. I just don’t know why its so difficult to get a good finish – very disappointing when You’ve worked hard to get a nice smooth airframe.
Since the wing has an under-camber to them, I had to stick the silk to each rib with dope and go over it again to make sure that the fabric didn’t pull away. I used 50/50 dope thinners mix, but looks like I may need to use 100% dope just to get the fabric to pull tight.
So it’s a work in progress. The next thing is fettling and finishing the cowl, which incidently is looking cool.
Once Ive got everything doped and finished then I can paint it!