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 Sailplane Construction Project Session #138

For the last three days, I have been painting the inside of the Sailplane's cowl with clear glossy Klass Kote in the morning once every 24 hours to allow sufficient drying time between coats. I used a mix of 1-part gloss catalyst, 1-part clear, and 1-part reducer. After I put on the third coat and letting it dried, I took the picture below for you to see of the inside of the epoxied cowl. This completes fuel proofing the inside of the cowl. The outside now has to be covered with orange silk next.
 
 
In the  layout plan shown below, I had cut out the 8" X 24" piece of orange silk for the cowl earlier.
This picture shows the 8" X 24" piece of orange silk draped around the outside of the cowl.
 
After applying the cowl's second covering of orange silk (first covering was white silk), I doped on one coat of 50/50 clear nitrate dope as shown below (you can still see the filled vent holes).
 
Since the orange and yellow colors of the silk on the Sailplane are nopt all that vivid, I decided to add Castin Craft dye to the clear nitrate dope to bring out and enhance the colors of the silk. I mixed up two jars of 50/50 clear nitrate dope shown below. In one on the left I stirred in twelve drops of yellow Castin Craft concentrated dye. The one on the right I stirred in eight drops of yellow and four drops of red to get orange (the red dye is pretty intense as you can see). I may have to add additional dye, depending how the first few coats of tinted clear dope look
 
For the next week or so, I will be clear doping all of the double covered Sailplane components. I maintain a doping log of coats of clear dope shown in the table below. This helps me keep straight what I have doped and how many times. The trick is to put entries in this table on a regular basis.
 
Coats of Clear Dope

Component

Wood

Polyspan

Silk

Orange Tint

Yellow Tint

Stab

3

3

3

1

1

Sub Fins

3

3

3

3

N/A

Elevators

3

3

3

N/A

1

Fin

3

3

3

1

N/A

Rudder

3

3

3

1

N/A

Sub Rudder

3

3

3

1

1

Wing

3

3

1

1

1

Hatches

3

3

1

2

N/A

Fuselage

3

3

1

1

N/A

Cowl

3

3

1

N/A

 
As you can see in the table above, I have jumped ahead and put a few coats of tinted dope on just see how it will look. After one coat of tinted dope, the orange fin and yellow right elevator are shown below. After the second coat, I may add another drop of red just to deepen the orange color a little more. I truly believe the tint is working. What do you think?...............................Tandy    


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