Tight as a drum.
Here the fabric is all glued to the elevator and has been heat shrunk to
350 degrees:
Tight as a drum.
Next, a good coat of Poly Brush was brushed on and allowed to dry.
After that, the elevators were rib stitched at 2 1/2" spacing as per the
Poly Fiber video:
After that the elevators were taped with reinforcement tapes. The curved
trailing edge was covered with 3" bias cut tape, to allow it to lay flat.
The elevator was placed vertical on the table as shown below and the
3" bias cut tape was clamped at one end and pulled around the curve of the
tube until it lay perfectly flat. It was then brushed with Poly Brush and
allowed to dry:
One of the little secrets that I have learned (actually it's in the Poly
Fiber manual) during this project is that you will save yourself lots
of work later, if you will take some time to iron down all of the pinked
edges of the tapes with a 225 degree iron. Do this before you spray on the
first coat of Poly Spray and life will be much easier for you later
on. Here is my building partner and Father-in-Law Lonnie Gibbons helping
me out with the ironing chores:
With all of the edges nice and smooth, the Poly Spray coats can be sprayed
on:
As previously discussed, this is a long process. Spray on a good cross coat (North-South, then East-West) and let it dry overnight. Lightly sand with some 320 wet or dry sandpaper and water, staying away from the rib stitches. Iron down any lifted pinked edges with a plastic bag and a 225 degree iron. Then spray on another cross coat of Poly-Spray and again, let it dry overnight.
This is all in the Poly Fiber instructional manual and video tape.I also burned some drain holes in the bottom of each bay of the tail surfaces with a hot soldering iron. These serve as drain holes for water.
After several rounds of spray it on and sand it off, the surfaces were finally smooth enough for me. I then ended with one good cross coat of Poly Spray and let it once again dry overnight.
It was then time to paint them white. I used Poly Tone like on the rest of the airplane. Insignia white was used for the tail pieces.
Here they are after 3 good coats:
A closer view:
Well that's about it for fabric covering. As covered elsewhere (click
link below) everything was painted in the original Bearhawk paint scheme.
Fabric Covering
Completed: September 19, 2007
Total Time: 174 hours
Click here to go to Painting page 1
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