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Harry's A4 Scooter


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Hi Many thanks for all taking the time and offering suggestions regarding painting the two contrasting colours. I decided to dayglo first and hence primed up those designated areas in white - then rubbed back and on went the dayglo!

Strictly its not "dayglo" but it is bright! Its a colour called International orange - effectively its a mix of red and orange - its dries matt. There is a lot of it though - the original aircraft had roughly 50% of each wing length covered - measured at the trailing edge and the tailplane around 40% - so its not going to get lost in the long grass!

Generally the paint went on fine - I have a little "crazing" going on near the nose - which I may rectify. Plus a few minor blips here and there. I will let it all harden off a bit prior to next steps. David I will pm you - Ive invested in rattle cans now - but thanks for the offer!

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Hi All,

Well I've had an upsy downsy couple of days with the model. I applied Humbrol Clear to the areas I wanted to protect for the next level of spraying and ...it dried to a patchy/ blotchy frosted/milky white over the dayglo! So a little cursing and a few wipes with surgical spirit and I was back where I started but a few hours older!

A drizzly day here so I have pushed on with a little cockpit detail and fixed the tail unit to the fuselage. Couple of photos below. Crunch time is coming soon - the main paint masking and spray job. Maybe early/middle of next week if all goes well and the weather improves!

A chunk of the visible dayglo will (hopefully) disappear under more primer and then topcoat.

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Pushed on a little further - got slowed a little with canopy and fixing - had to batten down the small overlap directly below the pilot location to get a good sit - on drying I found not all was tightly down so had a second gluing session. Each time I used plenty of tape, a couple of clamps ( gently applied!) and small balsa battens to hold down the overlaps.

Finished a marathon masking up session prior to final paint coats. Side jobs - fitted servos to wing and made pushrods, drilled arrester hook locating holes.

Slowly getting there! Couple more photos to show .

 

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Edited By Harry Twist on 02/09/2016 10:04:34

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Hi All, I turned part of my garage in to a mini spray booth again and suspended the fuselage to enable final colour application. This was basically more primer to cover the previous dayglo overlaps and then the "aluminium" coloured topcoat.

Using rattle cans to achieve a uniform finish is ... tricky!

Once sprayed I allowed a good 8 hours to dry off, prior to slowly picking and peeling tape off the masked up areas to reveal the final fuselage colours. Now allowing some more paint hardening time- but will confess to having played with some decals by lying them in place! The aluminium is not glossy but fairly reflective and hence reveals all the defects in the surface - but overall I'm happy with the outcome so far.

Took a couple of process pictures.....

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Thanks for the comments gents... but the aluminium does highlight some....fibreglass weave underfill....some surface patching I did.... a few dings...a few wing skin undulations......plus a few other imperfections ( the digi image makes it look better than it is!).

Had a frustrating night tonight after work, patching up a ding I accidentally did yesterday ( I was b****y annoyed with myself last night!).

Practiced spraying a piece of prepared scrap balsa with some lacquer I bought to cover the model with - it produced a mottled horrible grey effect - so wont be doing a matt lacquer coat. I would cover the whole model in Humbrol Clear - if I could be confident it would not go milky as it did on my dayglo parts- so a little stalled on a protective coating at the moment.

Steve - your question will it be ready ....yes I think so - just about.... but wont have been flown by then - so maiden flight will be at the weekend!

Edited By Harry Twist on 05/09/2016 21:13:26

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Hi All, I reckon my A4 is 95% done. Following a little paintwork rectification (which I spent a little time resolving) I have been able to move on to the really enjoyable bits - like applying decals and fitting the extra bits such as the antenna and arrester hook. Found my small fit piece between tailplane and exhaust shroud was fouling my elevator actuator - so have to tweak that also.

So Steve yes ... been a little busy!

Final weight is a midge over 3lb - so I hope we get a blow at the weekend! I have a tad more to do like final Cog tweaks and control throws.

Couple of photos of how she looks as of tonight.

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Many thanks for the feedback.

Well - I am going to say she's finished now. Final bits sorted tonight. Ended up at 3lb 2ozs to achieve CoG. I gave a thin coat of Humbrol clear over the aluminium finish to offer some protection. Decided against lacquer since on a practice piece I ended up with mottled grey - so darent risk this on the surface.

So, as Phil has suggested I will flip a picture or two onto the completed model thread.

Looking forwards to the weekend - but the last XC forecast I saw looked a little variable. It looks like Sunday may be the best flying day?

To conclude I will add that I have really enjoyed the build and offer my thanks to Phil and Matt for the creation and production of the A4 project - and also to everyone else who has provided support and feedback during this mini blog.

Regards H

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