Guillows Chipmunk Build

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Guillows Chipmunk Build

Postby scigs30 » Fri Jan 13, 2017 12:47 am

I have a couple of days off work so I decided to build something fast and easy, so I thought. The 900 series kits are some of my favorites from Guillows, they are easy to build and fly great out of the box. I remember trying to build this as a kid but never finished it, a little too hard for me back then. The balsa was contest weight and that is a good thing, but the die cut was pretty bad. Once I was able to free the parts I soon discovered they did not match up well with the templates on the plans. I really did not want to spend much time on this build so I did the best I could to clean up the parts. I really think this series of planes would be great if they were laser cut. I was able to build all the structures in one night using white glue. Today I sanded the parts and began covering using the white Guillows tissue. It is cold outside in the garage so I decided to break out my Eze Dope so I can build inside. I attached the tissue with a glue stick and stuck the edges down with 50/50 water Eze Dope mixture. Eze Dope works great on Esaki tissue since it does not sag much, but Eze dope on domestic tissue can be a challenge. This time around I covered all the structures with wet tissue to pull out all the slack and see if this works better. Since the structures are light and fragile I had to weigh them down as the tissue was drying to prevent warps. Also I used alcohol to wet the tissue instead of water since I was covering with a glue stick. If I used thinned Elmers glue I could cover with wet tissue using water. The glue stick does not hold well when exposed to water. After everything was covered I sprayed water with 5 percent Eze Dope with a spritzer to shrink the tissue for a wrinkle free finish. Tomorrow I will brush on 2 coats of 70/30 Eze Dope, 70 percent water and 30 percent Eze Dope. This is going to be a lite model so it should fly great.
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Re: Guillows Chipmunk Build

Postby scigs30 » Fri Jan 13, 2017 2:34 pm

The Eze Dope went on great with no issues, I think applying the tissue wet really made the difference. Normally the excess slack of domestic tissue and Eze Dope could cause rough application, puddles of Eze Dope and on thin structures causing the tissue to stick to the other side. Another importance application technique of Eze Dope is using the correct dope and brushing technique. First I use soft but not to soft synthetic brushes. 3/4 to 1 inch flat brush for the wings and 1/2 inch for the rest of the model. The first brush on coat is light wiping off excess dope from the brush before brushing onto the tissue. I try to brush even soft strokes with one pass trying not to brush over an already wet doped area. IF you brush on too much the dope it will pool causing problems. I brush on 2 coats of dope and keep everything pinned for 24 hours to make sure it is dry. I am really impressed that the thin tail surfaces did not warp and the tissue did not stick to itself. Another great thing about Eze Dope is applying the famous waterslide Guillows decals. We all know that the decals normally don't go on well when applying them to doped tissue. As you can see from the pictures, that is not an issue with Eze Dope. I soak the decal in water, slide decal off onto paper towel and dry off the water from the adhesive side. I then brush on 70/30 Eze Dope on the decal and apply the decal to the model.....It looks bad at first but when it dries, it is smooth and permanently attached. I also covered some small practice structures to see if I can airbrush acrylic paint over Eze Dope. I have used Acrylic paints over regular dope and ran into a couple of issues. One issue was the tissue would slack and wrinkle up when sprayed with acrylic paint and when dried, the tissue would have perm wrinkles. The other issue I had was the paint would lift off the tissue. This is a well known issue with hobby acrylics and that is why on plastic models I have to use primer with acrylic paint. I will airbrush acrylic paint on my Eze Doped practice parts to see how well it looks and dries, then test by applying masking tape. I will let you know that trial goes. Anyway I have to go a way for a few days, when I get home I will finish this little build.
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Re: Guillows Chipmunk Build

Postby scigs30 » Fri Jan 13, 2017 2:35 pm

Here is a picture of the 2 brushes I use for Eze Dope.
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Re: Guillows Chipmunk Build

Postby Bill Gaylord » Sat Jan 14, 2017 8:37 pm

Nice job as always.

Was viewing one of your builds at that other place, and was amazed at some of the trash comments people make. First they insist that these models must all be ultra-lightened. Then when you explain to them that you can still get reasonable flight times and simply enjoy building the kits per plan, they call it "making bricks barely fly" or some nonsense like that. Of course the commonality is that they never have any work to show like this.
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Re: Guillows Chipmunk Build

Postby gmwahl » Mon Jan 16, 2017 1:53 pm

Scigs,

I am personally enjoying the heck out of these threads that you are doing on stock guillows kits....Please keep it up! As a kid I never went fancy with them and built them straight from the box and enjoyed every minute of it. Some flew better than others, but all eventually flew with nothing more than what came from the box.

I think that there should be some sort of a stock event for kits built straight from the box with no wood replacement or aftermarket parts. This would be a fun contest that really puts ones flying and trimming skills to the test and would not concentrate so much on the duration of the flight. The satisfaction I had with a 15 second flight when I was a youngster will never be replaced with all the gizmos and aftermarket stuff that we can use to stretch those flights.

Mike
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Re: Guillows Chipmunk Build

Postby scigs30 » Mon Jan 16, 2017 3:01 pm

When I was younger our flying club would have contest with stock builds and no modifications.
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Re: Guillows Chipmunk Build

Postby scigs30 » Fri Jan 20, 2017 9:58 pm

I finished my Guillows Chipmunk built out of the box ready to fly once the rain stops. Once again I am happy with Eze Dope, with these lite structures there was no warping. The secret to applying the dope with domestic tissue is to apply the tissue wet and pull out all the slack. As shown with rubber and balanced she weighs 20 grams, should be a good flyer. I am having fun with keeping these builds simple, as you can tell not much in the way of scale details. I am doing this because I have multiple builds going on at the same time.....RC, freeflight rubber, plastic models and model rockets. All my hobby builds are the same, keep it simple and clean.
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