CONTROL LINE AEROBATICS
Curt Contrata, 6783 Nightwind Cir., Orlando, FL 32818; E-mail: [email protected]
Shortly after celebrating an 87th birthday with a group of friends and telling stories about his experiences while working at Lockheed, including the Skunk Works, and his career in model aviation, Bob Palmer passed away February 2, 2005. Perhaps best known for his Thunderbird design, he played an important role in the development of our event and the equipment we use today.
Bob had been inducted into the Model Aviation Hall of Fame and the PAMPA (Precision Aerobatics Model Pilots Association) Hall of Fame. He won the U.S. Nationals and Walker Cup in 1955, was an FAI team member, and toured the world demonstrating CL flying. Among his designs were:
- Pow-Wow
- Smoothie
- Mars
- Venus
- Hi-Boy
- Thunderbird
- Chief (the first CL Stunt kit with full-span flaps)
If you do a quick search at www.google.com for "Bob Palmer," you will find many articles from around the world containing people's stories of their wonderful experiences with Bob and of how he influenced so many modelers throughout the years.
If you like to poke around on the Internet, a site well worth visiting is www.nclra.org/WayneTrivin/Actualindex.html. Wayne Trivin is another talented modeler who passed away early this year. The National Control Line Racing Association has captured Wayne's web page and made it permanently available on its site.
Those in our event who knew Wayne would often be heard telling stories of seeing his Heinkel He 111 stunt model fly. With two loud Magnum .28 engines for power, everybody at the field would stop to watch as it flew.
Wayne also had a beautiful SV-12 with many homemade carbon accessories. He was building carbon tanks in the early 1990s, along with some fairly exotic carbon propellers.
However, Wayne did not fly just stunt. He was mostly known in racing circles, where he holds, and has held, many national records in racing and speed.
One year in Muncie, Indiana, during Nats week, Wayne's room was next to ours. At some point each day, we would compare notes on what was going on at the field in our events. One morning he opened his door and I saw an oil trail from his metal lathe running up the wall. I had known that he built his own 1/2A engines, but I never expected him to be doing it in his room!
Wayne was a pleasure to be around and to fly with. He will be missed.
It has been a while since I have given an update on the refinishing project I started last year. When the project began, I was working in an unfinished shop, with tools still in unmarked boxes. It quickly became frustrating because I was spending more time looking for things than building. Then family stuff got in the way and ten months quickly went by. I am proud to let you know that the 20 x 30-foot workshop is finally complete. It has:
- More than 40 linear feet of benches
- A closet for the compressor
- A clean room in which to store airplanes
- Cushioned floor mats for my feet (and for when I drop things)
- Central air conditioning and heat
- A satellite radio with killer speakers
It is much easier to spend quality time out there now. With all the work done in the shop, the model refinishing is back underway and progressing nicely. After I wiped off the old finish with cheap lacquer thinner and Bounty Select-a-Size paper towels, I let it gas off for a while (this turned out to be ten months). The next step was to make all of the woodworking changes required to transform the Katana into the Super Staris. Once I made those changes, I block-sanded the entire model with 400-grit sandpaper and gave it one coat of clear dope. I had stripped the paint off, but I left all of the silkspan and carbon veil on the model. At that time I realized what a terrific job the stripping did by not damaging too much of the old substrate.
After one coat of thinned clear, the entire wing was smooth and without blemishes. The capstrips were still covered, with the bays cut out and the edges sanded smooth. When I recovered the wing, it could not have been easier. The silkspan laid down nicely and seemed to have filled quicker than it would have over bare wood.
The areas that did not react as well to the stripping process were those covered in carbon veil. The parts had spots of nearly bare wood adjacent to filled veil areas. On this particular model, I had covered the flaps, elevators, and stabilizer in carbon veil. After the coat of clear, I decided to lightly sand and then cover those surfaces in silkspan, directly over the veil.
I am still amazed at how well the silkspan went on over the old veil. Throughout the rest of the project, those surfaces remained stiff, flat, and true, making block-sanding easy. The silkspan filled quicker and sanded out easier than it would have over bare wood.
After three coats of clear, I block-sanded the model and gave it a healthy brushed filler coat of clear dope—Aero-1 Filler—with a bit of Polar Gray for color. The Polar Gray gives the filler coat just enough color to make it easier to see the high spots so you don't oversand. That avoids leaving fuzzy spots on the silkspan or, worse yet, bare wood, both of which need to be filled all over again.
After leaving the model to dry for two days, I block-sanded it with 400-grit sandpaper, leaving a minimal amount of filler on the airplane. I wiped down everything three times before I sprayed it with one thin coat of clear, followed by a light coat of Polar Gray the next day.
Realizing that the model will be picking up a little weight during the project, I am paying extra attention to the amount of paint that is going back on. At this stage the color scheme should be well worked out, and it should be known which areas will be important to cover and fill. Places that receive base color and trim do not need much gray on them since they are to get two more layers of color.
As a rule, if you are not leaving the model gray, this coat does not have to be pretty. The blocking coat just needs to show blemishes and hide major color changes in the substrate. With the proper lighting the blemishes will show up easily, even if the model is not in perfect gray.
As for major color changes, you need to block out the black carbon and the red glazing putty with the gray blocking coat, and blend those areas. For the rest of the model, a light, almost transparent gray seems to work fine under a white base coat.
Spray-painting a model has the biggest potential for putting on weight of any step. It is easy to get trigger happy, especially when shooting base colors. The best thing to do is spray one coat and let it dry for a day.
After it is completely dry, take the model outside and look at the areas that are to remain the base color. If they look as if they need to be sprayed again, do so and leave the rest of the model alone.
Remember that many colors are translucent when wet and will turn opaque only when dry. Have you ever used Liquid Paper to correct a mistake when writing a letter? What works better, two thin coats or one heavy one? Heavy coats just don't cover as well.
With any project like this, you can expect something to be less than fun. For me, the worst part has been dealing with the flap and elevator hinge lines. Not just stripping paint, but getting them clean and keeping them that way has been the only real challenge so far.
If I were to do this again, I would remove the flaps and elevators and finish them separately. I typically finish my models unassembled, and now I know that I will continue to do it that way in the future.
How about a trip to Las Vegas for a contest?
It has been announced that the Society of Antique Modelers (SAM) will be adding two CL events to its SAM Champs this year in Las Vegas, Nevada. Old Time and Classic Stunt will be flown for the first time at this contest, with entrants limited to the amount of contestants that can fly in two days.
The SAM Champs will take place October 9–14, with Eric Rule acting as contest director. You can contact him at [email protected] or call (951) 678-1406 for more details.
Your contributions to this column are always welcome. If you would like to see a photo of your model published, or perhaps you would like to share some techniques with other modelers, please don't hesitate to send them in.
MA
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
