| Hangar |
Aircraft |
Category |
Date |
Preview |
| rayl | Scratch Built Consolidated XF-92A | Build | 29-Jan-15 12:34 |  |
| Views : 476 |
| Done applying heat. BTW I have a paint stripper gun that I use; don;t know if a hairdryer has enough power to do this. This master is about 7 1/2" long as is just at the maximum that will work with a "Coke" bottle. I had already formed two other sections of this canopy, the windshield and the clam-shell portion of the canopy so I was interested in forming the back turtle-deck here which explains why the front of teh canopy is not fully formed. When appyling the heat, be aware that if the plastic starts to fog, it has shrunk as far as it is going to at that point. Also, you might find that there are some creases of folds that appear when forming: just judiciously apply a little more heat to that area and they will go away. |
| rayl | Scratch Built Consolidated XF-92A | Build | 29-Jan-15 12:27 |  |
| Views : 449 |
| This is a shot of how the bottle is shrinking when I'm about half-way through the process. I keep pushing teh form up as the plastic shrinks. The bar is a piece of 1/4' X 1" aluminum and it does deflect during the process. Start applying the heat BELOW the master to keep wrinkles from forming and to insure even shrinking around the master. |
| rayl | Scratch Built Consolidated XF-92A | Build | 29-Jan-15 12:23 |  |
| Views : 452 |
| Here the canopy master has been inserted into the bottle and the caulk gun used to put tension on the bottle prior to beginning to heat the plastic. |
| rayl | Scratch Built Consolidated XF-92A | Build | 29-Jan-15 12:21 |  |
| Views : 425 |
| THis is the top side of the rig. The piece od aluminam strap is to keep tension on the 2 liter bottle as the forming process progresses. I ussed a a couple 1/2" X 20 carriage bolts with wing nuts to allow for easy removal and installation. See how the (open-ended) bottle is clamped to the ply? |
| rayl | Scratch Built Consolidated XF-92A | Build | 29-Jan-15 12:17 |  |
| Views : 433 |
| I thought that I would share a method for forming canopies (or any other shape that you might want to mould) out of a 2 liter softdrink bottle. This is the apparatus that I duplicated from "ModelMaster 2001" over on the RC Groups forum. It is a el-cheapo caulk gun mounted to a piece of 3/4" ply. I shortend the caulk gun body by about 4 inches to make sure that I had enough stroke to keep the form tight to the plastic when heat is added. |
| rayl | Scratch Built Consolidated XF-92A | Build | 29-Jan-15 10:14 |  |
| Views : 446 |
| Moby Dick on a stick! After much angst and hand-wringing, I'm going with the White color scheme that it last flew in. I just didn't want to get invovled with the natural metal or foil hassle. While the paint is curing, I'll start on the cockpit. Later. |
