Lipo Man

Another print here of your engine fan. It’ll finish the nose off brilliantly! Just waiting for the paint to dry before installing.

First try doing panel lines. I’ll watch Ron’s video of weathering before going any further! Made a template out of cardboard to do the inspection hatches, and a suitable sized glass did the wheel wells!

I’ll be watching this one with particular interest - just started my first attempt at panel lines which is fairly straightforward, but the dark arts of “weathering” are going to need some practicing, I think. I’ll watch and learn! And I’ll do the underside first, just in case! 🤣

Decals starting to go on. On the upside the triangles on the cowl look great! On the other side of the equation, they aren’t sticking brilliantly to the matt painted surface. The plan is to lacquer over the top but I may need to apply some PVA around the edges here and there. Hopefully they will work out…

A few hours on the computer this afternoon using Inkscape to make my own decals for my chosen scheme. I need to get some matt varnish spray to seal them before fitting - the test for size on the wing is just paper.

After taking some scissors to the kitchen sponge I’m starting to develop my “soft edges” technique. It won’t win any prizes close up, but on a fast low pass down the strip I think it’ll look good enough!

Very happy with the shade of yellow - looks suitably “egg yolky”. It’s exactly like a German WW2 plane is inside my head! If anyone is interested it’s a B&Q colour - Gran Via.

Agree the masking is a bit complex. I’m tempted to try it first making the red and white triangles with waterslide decals. Same for the tail. Worth a try, anyway. Plan B is masking and painting…

It now seems to work fine just by changing the timing. I’ll check the joints in any case, but it doesn’t seem to be the problem this time.

Here’s an odd one. I’m building a (very impressively designed) Warbird Replicas FW190. I’ve fitted an 800kv 4250 motor and a 60A BLHeli ESC. The motor ran up perfectly on the bench with no prop attached (safety first!). However, when I fitted a prop the motor would simply judder making a pretty horrible noise and wouldn’t spin. Take off the prop - works fine again! I know nothing about exactly how ESCs work, but had a hunch that it might be a timing issue. So I went into the ESC settings and switched timing to “Low” (there seem to be five settings and I’m now on the lowest one). And voila - it works fine! Very bemused but all seems ok so I guess I’ll try to fly it! Sharing in case anyone else has a similar issue.

Last bit of bare brown paper needs painting before the maiden - mainly for the purposes of waterproofing! The yellow I’ve got for the nose and tail doesn’t cover very well so I’ll put a couple of coats of some off-white I found in the shed on as undercoat. Scheme I’ve chosen is very colourful - the intention is that it’ll help with orientation.

Well I had some time today to work on the FW190. I started experimenting with using a sponge to paint - softening the edges of the camo. I also drilled out the spinner and used some 8mm washers to space it to work with an APC prop. Oh - also painted the canopy. Slightly concerned that with the model weighted to balance at the correct CG position I’ve come in a little over budget, weight-wise. RTF is 1,954g - that’s 4lb 5oz in old money. Quite a bit more than Richard’s prototype, which I think was 4lb. Not sure how that happened but I’m definitely a beginner, so not entirely surprising. Just need to build a dolly and fix the ESC (motor isn’t spinning if the prop is attached) and I can go flying.

Lots of willing club mates. It’s the competent bit that’s a struggle… And I cut the grass today so not even anywhere for a soft landing! 😂

Planning on building a dolly tomorrow to ease any hand launching issues!

Thanks Eric. That’s really useful feedback. I’ll be conservative for the maiden and cross fingers and toes!

I am aware of the saying about CG: ”A nose heavy plane flies poorly. A tail heavy plane flies once.” 😳

OK. I’ve got a partially painted but flyable plane, and I’m running out of reasons to chicken out of the maiden! I think the last unknown I have is CG position and control surface throws. I’ll set up the throws to match the recommendation on the printed sheet that came with the kit. However, on CG I wonder if anyone is flying with CG behind the 70mm from F2 recommendation? The reason I’m asking is because at present I’m going to need to add a fair bit of nose weight to hit the 70mm number. How twitchy would it get if I went a little behind the 70mm? Has anyone any real-world experience?

Well that is a fantastic looking thing, and the flight performance seems to have real promise. Interesting!

It may well fly great as it is. Only one way to find out! Good luck!

Your tube definitely isn’t choked - that’s actually a lot more than the fan swept area. The outer diameter of the fan is 50mm, so that’s the size to use in your calculation. However, for swept area you have to subtract the area blanked off by the motor - which is probably about 26mm diameter. Once you take that away and take your 90% calculation you’re actually aiming for something more like 1,290 square millimetres. I don’t know what the effect of having a tube that widens rather than contracts would be - I’d imagine you could lose some max speed. Good luck with your test flight!

Actually leaving off the spinner is a good suggestion. My motor shaft is 8mm so I need to drill it out, and I don’t have access to a pillar drill so a bit wary of doing it “by hand”. I’ll fly without it for now to buy myself some time…

I’ve got a few of them. They’re my most trusted receivers - including versus genuine Spektrum. I only fly line of sight and range has never been an issue for me. Hope you have similarly good luck!

My plan is to get the bulk of the colour on with brushes then do the sponge technique to add the “blobs” and soften the edges. Plan is to maiden as soon as weather cooperates but spend the odd evening here and there gradually adding weathering, panel lines etc. afterwards. I’ve never done this before so I’ll learn as I go, and your advice is massively helpful!

Righty ho - that’s tomorrow evening sorted then! Thanks!

Another quick newbie painting question. How do I paint the canopy? Do I need to prep the areas to be painted to get the emulsion to stick?