"G" Challenge Model - Cessna 150

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"G" Challenge Model - Cessna 150

Postby kittyfritters » Tue Jul 28, 2015 6:10 pm

Last week, we, again, had our six-year-old grandson with us for Science Camp at the California Science Center in Exposition Park. (His parents got to go to Las Vegas.) I had to drive him past downtown Los Angeles, on weekday mornings, and it made no sense to drop him off, drive home, and drive back to pick him up. As I did last year, I brought my portable building board and sat in the Science Center food court to build a model airplane while waiting for his class to be over, thus making myself a living museum display for about two and one-half hours every morning.

This year I started my "G" Challenge entry, a #309, Cessna 150. This is a new, laser cut, kit and since I decided to make it a nearly out-of-the-box build (except for a removable nose, of course) I expected it to go rather quickly despite the fact that people would interrupt me to talk about what I was doing, as they did last year. The interruptions are welcome since it gives me the opportunity to promote the hobby and myself by passing out some business cards.

On Monday I got the basic fuselage framed up and the stringers on down to the part where I had to put the landing gear wire on. On Tuesday, I had to bend the wire, giving some amazed onlookers a virtuoso performance (If I do say so myself.), installed the landing gear, and the rest of the stringers. Wednesday was for wings and tail feathers. I had some long conversations (and passed out a few business cards) so I did not get the wings finished. Thursday, I finished the wings, did some general sanding, and started on the structure for the inside of the plastic nose. Friday, I finished the nose and did most of the general sanding and cleanup for covering. Once I got the components completed it was easy to assemble it, temporarily, with three Scuncii clips so that people could see what it looked like assembled. (I have aluminum tube pins in the wing roots to locate the wings.)

The remarks from passers who did not stop to talk were interesting. The little kids said, "I want to do that!" The teenagers said, "Wow! People actually BUILD those things." The adults said. "Wow! People STILL build those things. And, the senior citizens said, "I admire your work."

All in all, it was fun. Out grandson had fun with us. His parents got some time to themselves. We enjoyed our grandson even if it does remind us of why we are to old to have kids, and I got this years entry started along with some free advertising. Not a bad week!

Keep 'Em Flying!

Howard
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Re: "G" Challenge Model - Cessna 150

Postby Billy Mc » Wed Aug 12, 2015 5:19 pm

Nice work! Grandkids are great. We have three that live with us, so we can't spoil them and send them home.
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Re: "G" Challenge Model - Cessna 150

Postby kittyfritters » Wed Dec 07, 2016 3:21 pm

So, where were we?

Sometimes I need a break from designing my own models and other issues so got back to work on the Cessna. Besides, I have one day left to get it in for the "G" Challenge.

So I started covering. The aircraft I chose to model was in pre-WW2 US Army colors, bare aluminum fuselage, not light blue. The wings and tail are covered with yellow Esaki tissue, but since I don't have any silver I will paint the fuselage with silver floral spray. The nice thing about an out-of-the-box Guillow's build is that you have a structure strong enough to cover wet. I cover shiny side out using permanent glue stick.

I covered the tail feathers first. I let one side dry and trimmed with sandpaper before covering the other side.

photo 1(15).JPG


Next I covered the bottoms of the wings, being careful to use glue on the strut pockets where I will cut the tissue when I assemble the model.

photo 2(15).JPG


Then I covered the tops of the wings using one piece each, an advantage of wet covering.

photo 2(14).JPG


The picture shows the wings dry and sanded before misting with Krylon #1305.
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Re: "G" Challenge Model - Cessna 150

Postby kittyfritters » Wed Dec 07, 2016 3:29 pm

The fuselage is another issue.

Now. I'm one of those showoffs that likes to wet cover half a curved fuselage with one piece of tissue. Not so simple with this one, however, since there are landing gear wires sticking out and the cabin sticks up in the middle. I decided to cover the bottom, between the main gear wires in one panel, the sides up to the wing mounting in one panel each and the top of the cabin with another one.

photo 1(14).JPG


The bottom panel went on OK but when it dried there were some peculiar wrinkles. Inspection revealed that one of the stringers was not glued into the slots on three formers and the shrinking tissue pulled it out. I pulled off the tissue, reglued the stringer, inspected all the other glue joints, and started over. This time I managed to tear a hole in the tissue at the front of the fuselage which caused some wrinkles too. Since all the damage was at the very front of the fuselage, and I am painting this fuselage, I decided to cover the damage with a wet patch. You can still see the hole and the winkled tissue under the patch which will not be visible when painted.

photo 1(16).JPG


The rest of the covering went on as expected. Now, let's see if I can get it finished by tonight! Wink

photo(77).JPG
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Re: "G" Challenge Model - Cessna 150

Postby scigs30 » Thu Dec 08, 2016 1:52 pm

Looking good Howard, should be a fun little flyer. Covering the Cessna 150 would be tricky covering half wet, but we all love a challenge. :D
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Re: "G" Challenge Model - Cessna 150

Postby kittyfritters » Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:25 pm

scigs30 wrote:Looking good Howard, should be a fun little flyer. Covering the Cessna 150 would be tricky covering half wet, but we all love a challenge. :D


Yes, well, even the way I did it it was not exactly easy!

photo 2(16).JPG


Once again I proved that if you wait until the last minute something will come up to foil your plans. This is a far as I got with it by last night.

photo(78).JPG


Too many little details left. I should have the time to finish it on Saturday and maybe test it on Sunday morning, weather permitting.
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Re: "G" Challenge Model - Cessna 150

Postby kittyfritters » Wed Feb 01, 2017 7:15 pm

I finally got my Cessna150 together. It's not one of my better efforts, but it's done and it flies. It is a straight out-of-the-box build except for the removable nose and the locating pins for the wings. Now, here is a comment on the quality of the current Guillow's wood...it weighs 48 grams! While not contest material, at that weight (It would be no trouble to get 10 grams out of it.), with that much wing area it is a more than adequate sport flier on four strands of 1/8" tan sport rubber, about 1-1/2 times the hook to peg length. That's quite an improvement over the die-cut days, the last 300 series model I built out-of-the-box weighed 78 grams ready to fly. Don't get me wrong, the old one flew, but not as well as this one.

Interestingly enough, with enough ballast in the nose to fly well (8 bb shot) it still doesn't have enough weight in the nose to sit on the nose gear...curious.

I had a minor disaster when I used a new paint pen to draw the door outlines on the fuselage. The line bled badly on the floral spray painted tissue. It looked terrible! The paint in the pen is waterproof and I was about to respray the fuselage when it occurred to me that the paint might no be alcohol proof.. Sure enough, 91% alcohol and some Q-tips took the paint right off. Unfortunately, it also took off some of the floral spray leaving a smudged outline where the bad door outline had been. I still had to re-spray the side of the fuselage but I already had markings and windows in place so I had to mask. This is where I first used Frog Tape For Delicate Surfaces. It worked beautifully and did not damage the tissue or painted surfaces at all. I would have normally used air brush frisket, but I had no spray bleeding at all with the Frog Tape. It's something I'll be using from now on. (No, that was simply a tip, not a paid commercial! :D


Keep 'Em Flying!

Howard
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Re: "G" Challenge Model - Cessna 150

Postby elkhart » Thu Feb 02, 2017 9:05 pm

Looks great! How did you do the decals? When you masked with the Frog tape, did you remove some tackiness from the tape before you put it on or did you use it full strength?
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Re: "G" Challenge Model - Cessna 150

Postby kittyfritters » Fri Feb 03, 2017 1:50 pm

elkhart wrote:Looks great! How did you do the decals? When you masked with the Frog tape, did you remove some tackiness from the tape before you put it on or did you use it full strength?


The decals are tissue printed on an inkjet printer. (Spray the tissue with white floral spray first to get intense whites.) They were then cut out and applied with glue stick.

There are two Frog Tape masking tapes, regular and Delicate Surfaces. I used the Delicate Surfaces version full strength. I don't how long you would have to allow the previous painting to dry so that the masking tape will not lift the paint, that fuselage was originally painted back in November. However, since it is meant for recently painted surfaces I suspect a day or two would be OK.

While I normally air brush with opaque acrylic artist's inks, when I paint, I have found the Design Master, rattle can, spray paints to be equally as light when carefully applied. It was sprayed over a misted coat of Krylon #1305 acrylic fixative. If I had any, at the time, I would have used silver Esaki tissue instead of painting. It has to be applied wet in order to shrink but a 300 series kit is strong enough for wet tissue application and all the tissue was applied wet on this model anyway.
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