Super Detailing S.E.5 Guillow's model

[Skyediamonds]

The same was done to the horizontal stabilizer.

 

[Skyediamonds]

The pulley system is almost lost within all the ribs and framework. I chose brass in some cases where it would most likely be seen and plastic on other cases such as the undersides where it's most likely least to be seen. Why brass? More "bling" of course!!

 

[Skyediamonds]

To fabricate the triangular inspection windows required a bit of thinking and practice. I decided to pre-fabricate the inspection windows ahead of time and simply affix them to the wings. The first picture does not show the clear plastic piece cut into a triangular shape, but it's there and I then cut up thin strips from Solartex heat-shrink film to adhere around this plastic piece.

Just prior to covering the wing, I then threaded the pulley system with thick silver thread. I then painted it silver again. The paint really brightened up the silver thread and added a bit more "heft" to the thread to make it more closely resemble the stranded wire used on the real plane.

My practice on a proof-of-concept wing section revealed that if I applied too much heat in effort to adhere the triangular inspection window to the surface, would only result in additional shrinkage of the film covering. Thus, I had to practice enough be able to achieve a balance of using just right amount of heat from the iron to adhere the inspection window to the surface, but take the iron away before it starts to shrink the surrounding film covering.

I initially tried using various glues and other adhesives but they tended to make a mess off the both the inspection window (fogged up the clear plastic), seepage of glue onto the surrounding surfaces, the glue tended to harden the surfaces causing winkles and more. Heat was the only option left.

 

[Skyediamonds]

The pulley system revealed.

 

[Skyediamonds]

This is basically where everything is at this point. The wing sections in the first picture have yet to be covered.

The third picture shows the trial fitting of the lower wing to the fuselage. This was crucial as I knew from past experience, the trained eye of a fellow modeler will definitely focus on some of the more subtle nuanced details and I wanted to make sure all the parts fitted very nicely.

 

[Skyediamonds]

Next, I shall cover the rigging aspects of the model and will show all of the advanced planning doesn't always mean success. Hopefully you have enjoyed the show up to this point. Please feel free to comment.
Thank you each and every one of you.

Skye

 

[Wurger]

 

[Skyediamonds]

Wurger:
Thank you sir! I noticed changes in the way this site shows off photos. Very nice!

 

[Wurger]

Yes. The forum soft has been changed and updated recently.

 

[Crimea_River]

Good update once again. I've not heard of the heat shrink product you referred to but an alternative might have been the use of acetate film for the clear panel and using CA glue to secure the reinforcing strips. In my experience this stuff doesn't fog up with CA glue.

 

[Skyediamonds]

Crimea,

Good morning and good to hear from you. This heat-shrink film I mentioned has been in the hobby field for decades. In spite of that, I still used the "tried and true" dope and tissue method until only recently. The tissue in question is called "silkspan." Its produced by various manufacturers and Guillow's includes enough silkspan in each of their kits. It has the feel and appearance of tissue. It's almost translucent. It is applied to an open frame like the type you see here in this photograph, but with each of the major components separate. The tissue is then cut out to fit the frame with some overhang of about 1 inch all around for grabbing onto and holding the edges to stretch it over the frame. Then the wooden frame itself is "doped." This is usually in the form of Butyrate or Nitrate dopes. On small scale models such as mine, it really doesn't matter too much which dope to use. You can also use other adhesives as well.

The pre-cut tissue is then applied over the doped portion of the frame and hand stretched out in all directions to work out as much of the winkles as possible. Then a fine mist of water is sprayed over the dried tissue. The water helps to shrink the tissue to near-drum tight. From there, dope is then thinned out with a compatible thinner about 50/50 or 70/30 dope to thinner and gently brushed over the top surface of the tissue itself. This fills up the fibers within the tissue and further tightens up the cover even more.

Tissue can also be applied "wet." This is the "wet method." It's main advantage is that the water is thoroughly soaked through the tissue with almost no chance of winkles when dry.

Usually, after the first coat of dope has dried thoroughly, a fine-grained sand paper such as # 340 or 400 is gently sanded over the tissue. Why? Because the tissue has fibers sticking out and needs to be sanded off for a smooth finish. These fibers sticking out is called "nap." So the nap is sanded off. After each coat has dried, the surface is gently sanded and then the residue of nap is wiped off with a tack cloth or a damp rag or paper towel to get rid of any remaining fibers left on top of the surface. After about 3-4 coats of dope, the tissue is then ready for the application of color paint, or colored dope of choice. From there, the whole major sub assembly is then put together with rigging or in the case of monoplanes, just simply put together.

Why did I mention all of this about tissue instead of heat-shrink film? Because the heat-shrink film does away with all of the previously described steps needed to apply the tissue. Most heat-shrink films have their own adhesive film on the back. So, just take a pre-cut piece of film, apply it over a portion of the frame. Then it just takes a small modeling iron to run over the top surface of the film to the frame all along the outside edges. The heat radiates through the film to the adhesive on the back and to the frame. After the film is applied to the whole frame. The iron is then gently held and glided over the whole top surface and the film shrinks to a drum tight finish. No dopes, no brushes, no sanding between coats, no smells no risks of spillage of dopes or messy dust naps. Most films are easy to paint over with a color of choice.

Heat-shrink films come in thousands of different colors and combinations. They also have special films with scale-like fabric weave patterns built right into the covering. This is the type of film I used on the S.E.5. So, if you look closely at some of my close up pictures of my previous posts of the model, you can see some kind of fabric weave.

Unfortunately, this type of heat-shrink covering with the fabric weave is either difficult to obtain or expensive. The original manufacturer in England just closed its doors March of this year. A German manufacturer is taking over. Since it knows it (now) has a lock on the market, its covering is very expensive. I was lucky enough to purchase as many rolls of the original film as possible without breaking my bank account. I hope to have enough to last at least 5-7 years.

Not to worry. Heat-shrink films of all other types are still widely available from many sources. For further information, may I suggest you check out heat-shrink films on Google or other sources of information on the Internet? It's very entertaining to watch and very educational.

Heat shrink films are also used on full sized aircraft as well and they're very good. There are many advantages of using the heat-shrink films on full sized aircraft such as being weather-resistant, very strong, very easy to apply and the list goes on. There are still many purist who insist on using 100% pure cotton or linen of choice and dopes in order to maintain pure authenticity and that's fine with me. However, the dopes will always be available.

I hope I have helped out here.

 

[Gnomey]

Looks great so far!

 

[special ed]

An excellent description of dope and silkspan covering, both definition and how to. I still use that method for my sport models as it took 25 years to get it right. I from time to time try the heat shrinks but I don't have another 25 years to get that right. I really appreciate your craftsmanship. My scale work is in 1/12 scale although I began with 3/4 inch to foot (1/16) basically for space. The larger size flies better if the wind comes up while flying. I built a Guillows SBD and tried to keep it light, did an airbrush finish like an overgrown plastic, and powered it with a Cox .09 ( I fly controlline)and made two flights on a very calm day before L/G damage even on concrete. After repairs it was just to look at. I am fascinated by your detail work and patience.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks for all the info on the silkspan. Very interesting. In suggesting the acetate and CA for the clear film I was responding to your statement "I initially tried using various glues and other adhesives but they tended to make a mess off the both the inspection window (fogged up the clear plastic)...."

 

[Skyediamonds]

Gnomey, Thank you, Sir. It's greatly appreciated.

Mr. Ed, glad you shared with me your input on control line flying and your experiences with both silkspan and heat-shrink films.

I used the dope-n-tissue method on the Wright Flyer. For the S.E.5, I used the heat shrink films.

From my own (humble) opinion, the heat shrink films are much easier to apply than the dope-n-tissue method. I figured the latter to be a great teaching aid for beginning modelers to advance themselves into heat-shrink films. Once the silkspan procedure is mastered, it seems everything else is easy. The techniques used for heat shrink films insofar as spreading out the film over the framework is pretty much the same as if it were silkspan. Using the wing as an example, just perform the initial stretch of the covering from the root to the wingtips. To do this, gently "tap" the iron on the film to the wing root first to hold the edge of the film in place, then pull the rest of the film out towards the tips. Then gently "tap" the tips to hold the first stretch. From there, (to me), it's just a matter of gently spreading the sides out and working out the ripples and gently "tapping" the iron on the leading or trailing edges as you go along.out from the wing root to the tips. The beauty of this is with this "tapping" method, you can easily lift the film from its original spot and move it such that you can stretch out even more winkles. Can't keep removing the film too many times though as it will eventually wear out the adhesive backing.

After the winkles have been worked out as best as possible then iron continuously all along the edges of the wing frame such that the film is now adhered to the whole frame and not just spots of adhesion here and there. **Note: only iron the edges: this includes the entire wing root rib, all along the leading edge, trailing edge and the last rib before the wingtip.. Try to avoid the dozens of ribs in the middle that make up the wing. If you iron on over the centered ribs in the middle of the wing, the ribs will "grab" onto the film and prevent the film covering from shrinking evenly along the entire wingspan. Afterward, you can gently (I keep using that word, "gently" a lot here, sorry), glide the iron over the surface and watch the rest of the remaining small winkles disappear. Still try to avoid touching any of the middle ribs themselves, or at least not to the extent the adhesive backing will stick to the whole chord of the rib. You can concentrate the iron on some particular spot that has more winkles than other areas to help "iron out" the winkles. Just focus on the surfaces between the ribs as much as possible. The top side usually requires two separate film pieces. One main piece for the wing itself and a smaller piece for the wingtip. This is mostly due to the compound curves at the wingtips.

Once this wing covering is in place and all of the winkles are ironed out, then you can go over the ribs in the middle to help hold down the film.

I've tried using only one piece on the top surface by ironing the film over the last wing rib near the tip. From there, I would treat the remaining film covering as if it were a separate piece. Unfortunately, that idea didn't work. So it was back to using two separate pieces for the top side of the wing.

One more thing: try to have the "lips" of the film that runs all along the leading edge of the wing (and the trialing edge) to wrap around the leading edge (trailing edge too) to the underside. Then cut off the remaining films. This is so when you cover the opposite side of the wing, the next covering will overlap the first covering and "hide" the initial edge of the first application.

The underside of the wing should be covered first, then the top side. This allows the top covering to overlap the edges from the underside. You can use a new sharp # 11 razor to cut the remaining edges off. Try to use a metal flexible straight straight edge to cut just under the leading or trailing edges such that the cut itself is not easily seen. This will help keep the cuts nice and straight and even. On the S.E.5, I used "antique" for the undersides and a separate color of "olive drab" on the top side. The olive drab was wrapped around the leading edges to just be seen from the undersides. I've included a picture here of the center section of the top wing to use as an example. Here, you can see how the second covering; olive drab, wrapped around the edges of the section to the underside and then cut with a straight edge. What is not seen, is the antique color is also wrapped around the edges underneath the olive drab. It's sort of like a "double wrap."

Hope all this helped.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Skyediamonds]

Wurger, thank you sir! Glad to know you're still around reading my build threads and reading them. Let me know if they make sense.

 

[Wurger]

Of course these make sense.. It is a great job here. Also it is very close to a way I like the most what can be express with the sentence: " From a formless to a shape "

 

[Skyediamonds]

Excellent ! Thank you, sir. I tried to read what I typed & pretended I did not know what was going on. That way, I could make sure I was writing accurately enough to be understood. I must have revised my writings about four times before hitting the "Post Reply" button.

 

[Wurger]

Take it easy. Same here. As a no native I have to check my writing ten times before posting and I still make mistakes or typos.