by scigs30 » Tue Jan 09, 2018 11:07 pm
Total working time is 8 hours and the Spitfire is built, covered and doped, not bad for a quality Guillows kit. The new tissue Guillows now supplies is pretty close if not Esaki type of tissue. The tissue has great wet strength and way too much shrink as you can see from the stringers on my fuselage. The fuselage was covered with two pieces of tissue for a wrinkle free finish. I applied thin glue around the perimeter, dampen the tissue with water then apply the tissue and begin pulling out the wrinkles. The big secret here is begin cutting all the relief cuts on the outside perimeter before the tissue begins to dry. If you notice the tissue drying go ahead and dampen again. If you do not make all the relief cuts, the tissue will dry and shrink around the perimeter pulling the tissue off the glued surfaces. Once the tissue looks good don't set the part down and walk away. You need to make sure when it is shrinking that the tissue remains attached, if it comes loose brush on more adhesive and re attach, you may have to dampen the tissue again. Once it is dried I trim the tissue with a sharp razor and another important step needs to happen for a successful wet covering job. You have to seal the perimeter before you cover the second side with wet tissue. If you do not do this, the moisture from the second wet tissue will loosen the glue of the first dried piece and it will come loose and wrinkle....yuk.......So after you trim the first side you can seal the glued perimeter with dope or in this build I used thinned Eze Dope. Once the perimeter is sealed you can begin covering the second side just like the first and you wont have to worry about the first side coming loose. Once the second side is all dry I carefully trim the tissue and seal the edges once again before shrinking... I lightly mist the tissue for a wrinkle free finish. I decided to cover all pieces wet including the wing, once again making the relief cuts in the tissue before it dries and begins shrinking. Once everything is covered and edges sealed down I mist the tissue with water for a final shrinking and add washout to the wing. It is raining outside so I used Eze Dope inside,,,,,,thats nice. After covering before doping the weight with tissue to all the structures was 15 grams.....I wont go into how to use Eze Dope, Ive done extensive write ups on that before. I wont be able to work on this until next Tues, I have not decided if I'm going paint the plane or not. Final weight with Eze Dope is now 15 grams.
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