Easy-to-Form
Canopies
BY DAVE HARDING
RAISE YOUR HAND if you wish you could build Scale models
like Dave Platt. That’s probably most of you.
Now raise your hand if you would like to put realistic canopies
on your Scale or scalelike models. That’s probably the same bunch.
Finally, raise your hand if you don’t have a vacuum-forming
machine. I have just found the audience for this session.
It began for me when I decided to build an FF Indoor Lancaster
for a meet that was four days away. The model came together
quickly because the Lancaster has simple lines and I used an
available molded-foam wing.
The result began to look really good with a day to go, but it
became obvious that I would need five different canopies for
completion. I didn’t have a vacuum-forming machine, so, with
necessity being the mother of invention, I began to scheme.
To make a canopy you need to stretch transparent plastic over a
form; you can’t just bend it. Many of the candidate canopies involve
a deep draw to produce the shape from a flat sheet. This is what led
me to try bubble-pack materials.
Bubble packs have already been drawn over the object they
display—some of them deeply—and although they do not have the
right shape, most of the material is in the right place. So I began to
experiment using these materials.
I learned two things, the first of which is that if you make a
canopy from the right bubble pack, the deep draw is done for you.
Second, most bubble packs shrink with heat, as does MonoKote.
The scheming is finished. All that remains are two tasks most
modelers are good at: carving a pattern, or plug, from a block of
wood and heat-shrinking plastic to fit it, as when carving a wingtip
and forming MonoKote over it.
Let’s get to it.
You must start by carving a pattern. I use scrap chunks of 2 x 4
lumber I find in my wood bin. You do have a wood bin, don’t you?
(I almost died when my new son-in-law threw away the surplus
“grade 1” lumber the Pella window contractor left when he finished
his job!)
A Lancaster model demands detailed canopies for realism! I carve the pattern and then mount it on a smaller standoff piece
This
method
of model
detailing
won’t burst
your
bubble
November 2007 39
11sig2.QXD 9/21/07 9:09 AM Page 39
The pattern is carved from scrap wood and
mounted on standoffs so it is elevated
above the vice jaws.
This bubble-pack draw is a good match for the Lancaster cockpit.
Warm the bubble pack with a heat gun and pull down with a
gloved hand.
Continue to heat and pull around the edges to ensure a good fit
to the canopy details.
The author’s collection of various bubble packs, candidates for canopy materials, and the
Lancaster plugs. Some of the plugs have both ends used for different canopies.
This Magic Marker bubble pack looks like it will
be a good fit!
Photos by the author
40 MODEL AVIATION
11sig2.QXD 9/21/07 9:40 AM Page 40
so the whole thing can be clamped in a vice.
The canopy part stands above the vice jaws.
You need access all around the pattern
while performing the canopy-forming task.
The second part is to pick exactly the
right bubble pack. It must have
approximately the right draw at the deepest
part.
I have been collecting bubble packs from
my purchases for sometime now. My
assortment is such that I am prepared to
make almost any canopy at a moment’s
notice, without leaving the workshop.
One of the most versatile packs is one
from a Magic Marker. Don’t worry about
the creases; they will come out in the
forming process.
The process—to pull the pack down on
the form while shrinking the surplus
material around the edges—includes a heat
gun. You will pull the material onto the
form with your hand(s) while wearing heavy
gloves for protection.
It will take some practice, but at some
point you will find that it is difficult to get
the material to stretch anymore but
relatively easy to make it shrink.
You use your hands in a way that sort
of replicates the vacuum force in
conventional forming. Pull down around
the edges and apply the heat to the part
that needs to be shaped. Working all
around in successive areas, the form will
take shape.
Sometimes, with a particularly difficult
shape, you may find it helpful to push it
with your fingers and hold it while the part
cools. Eventually you will have the part or
something close to it. It might take several
tries to get a good form as you build your
skills.
I was successful on my first attempt at this
method. I made the five different canopies
for my model in one afternoon—in time to
wow the railbirds at the Indoor meet.
Hmm. That spare canopy looks good.
Maybe I should make another Lancaster—
perhaps the Dam Busters version ... MA
Dave Harding
(610) 872-1457
[email protected]
Edition: Model Aviation - 2007/11
Page Numbers: 39,40, 41
Edition: Model Aviation - 2007/11
Page Numbers: 39,40, 41
Easy-to-Form
Canopies
BY DAVE HARDING
RAISE YOUR HAND if you wish you could build Scale models
like Dave Platt. That’s probably most of you.
Now raise your hand if you would like to put realistic canopies
on your Scale or scalelike models. That’s probably the same bunch.
Finally, raise your hand if you don’t have a vacuum-forming
machine. I have just found the audience for this session.
It began for me when I decided to build an FF Indoor Lancaster
for a meet that was four days away. The model came together
quickly because the Lancaster has simple lines and I used an
available molded-foam wing.
The result began to look really good with a day to go, but it
became obvious that I would need five different canopies for
completion. I didn’t have a vacuum-forming machine, so, with
necessity being the mother of invention, I began to scheme.
To make a canopy you need to stretch transparent plastic over a
form; you can’t just bend it. Many of the candidate canopies involve
a deep draw to produce the shape from a flat sheet. This is what led
me to try bubble-pack materials.
Bubble packs have already been drawn over the object they
display—some of them deeply—and although they do not have the
right shape, most of the material is in the right place. So I began to
experiment using these materials.
I learned two things, the first of which is that if you make a
canopy from the right bubble pack, the deep draw is done for you.
Second, most bubble packs shrink with heat, as does MonoKote.
The scheming is finished. All that remains are two tasks most
modelers are good at: carving a pattern, or plug, from a block of
wood and heat-shrinking plastic to fit it, as when carving a wingtip
and forming MonoKote over it.
Let’s get to it.
You must start by carving a pattern. I use scrap chunks of 2 x 4
lumber I find in my wood bin. You do have a wood bin, don’t you?
(I almost died when my new son-in-law threw away the surplus
“grade 1” lumber the Pella window contractor left when he finished
his job!)
A Lancaster model demands detailed canopies for realism! I carve the pattern and then mount it on a smaller standoff piece
This
method
of model
detailing
won’t burst
your
bubble
November 2007 39
11sig2.QXD 9/21/07 9:09 AM Page 39
The pattern is carved from scrap wood and
mounted on standoffs so it is elevated
above the vice jaws.
This bubble-pack draw is a good match for the Lancaster cockpit.
Warm the bubble pack with a heat gun and pull down with a
gloved hand.
Continue to heat and pull around the edges to ensure a good fit
to the canopy details.
The author’s collection of various bubble packs, candidates for canopy materials, and the
Lancaster plugs. Some of the plugs have both ends used for different canopies.
This Magic Marker bubble pack looks like it will
be a good fit!
Photos by the author
40 MODEL AVIATION
11sig2.QXD 9/21/07 9:40 AM Page 40
so the whole thing can be clamped in a vice.
The canopy part stands above the vice jaws.
You need access all around the pattern
while performing the canopy-forming task.
The second part is to pick exactly the
right bubble pack. It must have
approximately the right draw at the deepest
part.
I have been collecting bubble packs from
my purchases for sometime now. My
assortment is such that I am prepared to
make almost any canopy at a moment’s
notice, without leaving the workshop.
One of the most versatile packs is one
from a Magic Marker. Don’t worry about
the creases; they will come out in the
forming process.
The process—to pull the pack down on
the form while shrinking the surplus
material around the edges—includes a heat
gun. You will pull the material onto the
form with your hand(s) while wearing heavy
gloves for protection.
It will take some practice, but at some
point you will find that it is difficult to get
the material to stretch anymore but
relatively easy to make it shrink.
You use your hands in a way that sort
of replicates the vacuum force in
conventional forming. Pull down around
the edges and apply the heat to the part
that needs to be shaped. Working all
around in successive areas, the form will
take shape.
Sometimes, with a particularly difficult
shape, you may find it helpful to push it
with your fingers and hold it while the part
cools. Eventually you will have the part or
something close to it. It might take several
tries to get a good form as you build your
skills.
I was successful on my first attempt at this
method. I made the five different canopies
for my model in one afternoon—in time to
wow the railbirds at the Indoor meet.
Hmm. That spare canopy looks good.
Maybe I should make another Lancaster—
perhaps the Dam Busters version ... MA
Dave Harding
(610) 872-1457
[email protected]
Edition: Model Aviation - 2007/11
Page Numbers: 39,40, 41
Easy-to-Form
Canopies
BY DAVE HARDING
RAISE YOUR HAND if you wish you could build Scale models
like Dave Platt. That’s probably most of you.
Now raise your hand if you would like to put realistic canopies
on your Scale or scalelike models. That’s probably the same bunch.
Finally, raise your hand if you don’t have a vacuum-forming
machine. I have just found the audience for this session.
It began for me when I decided to build an FF Indoor Lancaster
for a meet that was four days away. The model came together
quickly because the Lancaster has simple lines and I used an
available molded-foam wing.
The result began to look really good with a day to go, but it
became obvious that I would need five different canopies for
completion. I didn’t have a vacuum-forming machine, so, with
necessity being the mother of invention, I began to scheme.
To make a canopy you need to stretch transparent plastic over a
form; you can’t just bend it. Many of the candidate canopies involve
a deep draw to produce the shape from a flat sheet. This is what led
me to try bubble-pack materials.
Bubble packs have already been drawn over the object they
display—some of them deeply—and although they do not have the
right shape, most of the material is in the right place. So I began to
experiment using these materials.
I learned two things, the first of which is that if you make a
canopy from the right bubble pack, the deep draw is done for you.
Second, most bubble packs shrink with heat, as does MonoKote.
The scheming is finished. All that remains are two tasks most
modelers are good at: carving a pattern, or plug, from a block of
wood and heat-shrinking plastic to fit it, as when carving a wingtip
and forming MonoKote over it.
Let’s get to it.
You must start by carving a pattern. I use scrap chunks of 2 x 4
lumber I find in my wood bin. You do have a wood bin, don’t you?
(I almost died when my new son-in-law threw away the surplus
“grade 1” lumber the Pella window contractor left when he finished
his job!)
A Lancaster model demands detailed canopies for realism! I carve the pattern and then mount it on a smaller standoff piece
This
method
of model
detailing
won’t burst
your
bubble
November 2007 39
11sig2.QXD 9/21/07 9:09 AM Page 39
The pattern is carved from scrap wood and
mounted on standoffs so it is elevated
above the vice jaws.
This bubble-pack draw is a good match for the Lancaster cockpit.
Warm the bubble pack with a heat gun and pull down with a
gloved hand.
Continue to heat and pull around the edges to ensure a good fit
to the canopy details.
The author’s collection of various bubble packs, candidates for canopy materials, and the
Lancaster plugs. Some of the plugs have both ends used for different canopies.
This Magic Marker bubble pack looks like it will
be a good fit!
Photos by the author
40 MODEL AVIATION
11sig2.QXD 9/21/07 9:40 AM Page 40
so the whole thing can be clamped in a vice.
The canopy part stands above the vice jaws.
You need access all around the pattern
while performing the canopy-forming task.
The second part is to pick exactly the
right bubble pack. It must have
approximately the right draw at the deepest
part.
I have been collecting bubble packs from
my purchases for sometime now. My
assortment is such that I am prepared to
make almost any canopy at a moment’s
notice, without leaving the workshop.
One of the most versatile packs is one
from a Magic Marker. Don’t worry about
the creases; they will come out in the
forming process.
The process—to pull the pack down on
the form while shrinking the surplus
material around the edges—includes a heat
gun. You will pull the material onto the
form with your hand(s) while wearing heavy
gloves for protection.
It will take some practice, but at some
point you will find that it is difficult to get
the material to stretch anymore but
relatively easy to make it shrink.
You use your hands in a way that sort
of replicates the vacuum force in
conventional forming. Pull down around
the edges and apply the heat to the part
that needs to be shaped. Working all
around in successive areas, the form will
take shape.
Sometimes, with a particularly difficult
shape, you may find it helpful to push it
with your fingers and hold it while the part
cools. Eventually you will have the part or
something close to it. It might take several
tries to get a good form as you build your
skills.
I was successful on my first attempt at this
method. I made the five different canopies
for my model in one afternoon—in time to
wow the railbirds at the Indoor meet.
Hmm. That spare canopy looks good.
Maybe I should make another Lancaster—
perhaps the Dam Busters version ... MA
Dave Harding
(610) 872-1457
[email protected]
