Ep 123: Plans, Planes, and Covering

[00:00:06] Hello everyone welcome to the rc plane lab podcast i'm ron i'm tom and i'm dave we are back after everybody a little bit of time off we actually haven't sat down and recorded just the three of us for a month now it's been a little bit yeah it's been a minute our last episode was craig hopefully everybody enjoyed that conversation we have a lot that we've kind

[00:00:36] Of done in the last yeah month or so a couple of trips to brian's our favorite place and i think you're making another one tomorrow hopefully yeah we'll see that'll be like three in a month yeah it's fun it's fun one of the first things i wanted to say though so i remember last time or the time before whenever it was we were talking about the 3d printed motor mounts for the ultrix yep there's a guy i work with has a 3d printer and stuff and i was talking to him about them and i took one in to show him and whatever i i don't know resins very well whatever the resin

[00:01:10] Is that i use it's a little bit rubbery i mean it's fine don't get me wrong it works for what it is but he bought some resin that is i think he says like abs like so it's a harder type plastic like a polycarbonate or something like that kind of sort of yeah he's got a couple of them in his hand so i asked him i said well i'm curious to see what this is like i said if i send you a file could you print me a couple of them that way i can compare to what i've printed before that way because there's a lot of waste sometimes when you try and switch out resins and all that

[00:01:41] Stuff so it's just easier to give somebody else a file and have them print especially if they're already right printing with that stuff gotcha so he said yeah no problem send me the file so i sent it to him and came to work the next day and he handed me a bag of 46 of these things oh my gosh i said what i said i needed two of them i told him i said i just two motors is all all i needed and he's like well i just filled the build plate with it he said don't worry about it it was just as easy just copy everything and print so i have 46 of these motor mounts i have used two i set aside two for me to

[00:02:13] Put on my ultrax i gave dave two so that takes me down to 42 so if anybody has the not the umx but the big ultrax ultrax 600 hit ron up if you need motor mounts yeah if you want a couple motor mounts seriously send me an email i will mail you out a couple of them because it does me no good and i don't just want to throw them away and i just installed mine the other day well i still might take mine off i've only changed one out so i still have one of the original ones on there that are as we stated before very small compared to these yeah they are so yeah interesting 46 of them

[00:02:49] 40 46 42 of them that are just useless sitting not doing anything okay all right yeah so if you guys need motor mounts for your ultrax please a big one let me know yeah let ron go so they're so small they'll be easy to mail so yeah i'll just ship them in a bag or whatever through the post office anyway right on what else we made a couple trips to brian's yeah tommy and i went up once yep no dave and i went up once all three of us went yeah we all went we all went up once

[00:03:19] Yeah because we took a day's vehicle remember it's been so long yeah it's been a while we were all yeah yeah right so dave came home with more airplanes than i did actually i guess we took mine didn't we yeah we took yours but reggie didn't come that's right because we were going

[00:03:36] Too late for him and he ended up not going anyway we left it by the way the last time we went i just

[00:03:41] Went with crystal and piper last weekend yeah like a few days ago he got whiny when he found out that we were because he called right after we had left and he's like oh you didn't tell me you were going whatever and then he was on speakerphone and crystal's like we just left drive on up and he did awesome so he met us up there good deal do you buy anything yeah yeah he did nice he i don't remember if i've talked to you since then but anyway he oh i think he posted pictures of whatever he bought

[00:04:11] On discord that's right he i was trying to think i knew there was a way that you knew about it but i knew it wasn't and you told me he bought an air tractor i think yeah yeah he liked mine so much that he wanted to buy his own he got a good deal on it is a good flying airplane it's a wonderful flying airplane it was something i guess somebody didn't want and traded into brian and it was just sitting there and calling his name so yeah he came home with that yeah he's been buying a lot more

[00:04:34] Airplanes than i have oh so i like how you say that now because what's coming i do

[00:04:40] Anyway dave actually has bought more airplanes than i have yeah but those weren't all for dave though

[00:04:47] I bought one for myself touche one was a gift and then i got another stick for daniel it's becoming a habit every time i go up to brian's i bring back a 30 stick for daniel yeah

[00:05:03] Well hopefully this is the last time right yeah hopefully this is the last one

[00:05:06] At least for a while and what's sad is i it's i can't remember what you got for him

[00:05:10] It was one of the giant sticks the great plains giants yeah that's okay and older zenoa 38 on it

[00:05:17] Another one another one yeah another one but the good thing is this is clearly the great plains version

[00:05:23] This is clearly we have an instruction manual yeah you'll yeah where to put the cg and

[00:05:28] The control roads and all that stuff yeah speaking of which do you think that it's possible that other airplane that you lost all control over with the elevator was too nose heavy no no no because it took off fine yeah i watched the takeoff okay and it something happened mid-flight that was the only thing i could think of because it's just like you kept you ran out of elevator you ran out of all

[00:05:51] Control control authority yeah okay well i don't know my assumption at this point the only thing it could possibly be is the control horn was slipping on the servo it's the only possibility that i can

[00:06:05] Think of at this point there's really no good way to figure that out no yeah yeah but anyway not to go

[00:06:12] Over that again yeah what did you get dave for myself yeah i don't know it is what was a 1600 millimeter give or take electric glider of some sort it's laser cut kit nice looking airplane yeah it's nice beautiful little do you remember it no i don't the white one oh yeah yeah yeah no i remember

[00:06:38] Well you guys come home with so many airplanes oh stop it i just saw it sitting in the back by the

[00:06:44] Bathroom and it looked lonely and yeah i remember now how much do you want for this yeah yeah good

[00:06:49] Deal look from what i remember now looks like it's probably going to be a good flyer yeah i think

[00:06:53] It'd be fine yeah and then what is the other one that he just told you you had to take i have a free

[00:07:01] Flight this is old yeah jetco thermic 70 72 something like that yeah the big thermic

[00:07:14] It's nothing to me other than it's neat because it's old i think but yeah it's clearly

[00:07:21] Well free flight it was one of those so it had a fuse or something on it right that you're supposed

[00:07:25] To use them it had it was set up for a they call them a tomi timer just a little mechanical timer for a de-thermalizer it allowed the elevator to snap up and de-thermalize the

[00:07:37] Airplane so it didn't fly away so it just would come down after a certain amount of time

[00:07:41] Yeah and who knows where yep and you gotta go for a walk which in my situation i'm not really looking forward to well you're gonna i thought you said you were gonna thinking about putting some ultra micro servos in it just to make it rc assist basically still free flight but yeah yo you're getting too far away come back yeah i can't remember was that rubber powered i can't remember bungee launch

[00:08:07] Bungee launch okay yeah high start yep hey i know somebody's got one of those if you don't mind the walking and listen take a golf cart with you just saying yeah we're doing that so i was lucky enough

[00:08:21] When i went up to find that he did have one of the erratics is in stock so i got to come home with the new erratics he didn't have the bnf he only had the pnp version you're really looking forward to

[00:08:32] That too and it does fly good i know now that i've seen it so much fun yeah but i mean yeah so i i ended

[00:08:39] Up buying a receiver from him and stuff and and tried so i tried to go to horizon's website and download the files that you're supposed to just be able to load onto the receiver and that way you don't have to do any setup it's pretty much just ready to go i'm gonna be honest i had a little bit of problems with that to where i ended up like i couldn't get the programming the way i wanted it based on the what they had programmed already like one of the things that i did on that one because i wasn't sure how much gain i wanted for as3x one of the things i was looking at online they said to do is put

[00:09:12] The gain adjustment on that back slider so that when you're flying you can control how much as3x you have how much gain you have on it and i could not do that the way it was set up from the factory so i had to do pretty much a wipe yeah and then just i mean i guess no programming whatsoever on the receiver and i got it set up that way and that it worked pretty well yeah that's pretty slick to

[00:09:35] Have the have the gain remotely controlled on the transmitter yeah yeah and not just on a switch now it's on your rotary so it's completely proportional which is yeah yeah well it's on the top rotary one i'm

[00:09:46] Sorry it wasn't on the finger switch well either way yeah yeah the sliders i am constantly bumping those things i me too i don't think i'd put anything on there that i my gyro that it's a remote gain it's on the top right knob just yeah that's what mine's on too for the the thing on the erratics because i'm constantly hearing mine beep yep beep because i'm constantly moving that slider not

[00:10:08] Even realizing it ron's beeps a lot too but not because you're in the side i don't know why it beeps

[00:10:13] Like you can just be sitting there and it just beeps like it's like and it's random too it'll

[00:10:17] Beep like three times in quick succession and then it won't beep for like five minutes i know

[00:10:22] It'll beep i'm it's it's kind of frustrating a little bit to be honest with you i don't know because yours doesn't do it no it's just mine being special i guess i don't know what causes it

[00:10:31] Well maybe each ix12 has its own personality and maybe that's why and mine's ken pankerous to you in morse code yeah mine yeah mine i don't know it takes forever to boot up and that's its personality

[00:10:41] Then yours just likes to beep randomly so yours is slow and mine's just obnoxious right i wonder where they get the personalities from wait what i think you just said i'm slow that's okay

[00:10:54] Oh that's not what i'm not and he's obnoxious that's what i was going for but anyway when we

[00:10:59] Were up there also i picked up a gas tank for my telemaster 40 ounces 40 ounces yeah that's a big

[00:11:07] One too big no not for that airplane it'll be fine like i said before for some reason in my mind

[00:11:12] I scale it based on the size of the airplane it's a big airplane so i think it should have a big tank yeah but i have not got it put on yet because it's been hectic there's always excuses i make it fits nicely right up in the nose though it's actually really good i mean it's gonna be a a great site to put it great spike great spot to put it yeah that but you said yeah a little tongue-tied it's been a

[00:11:34] Long week it's okay yeah i would treat it just like any other nitro or gas plane just put it right behind the firewall just like we were talking about and then i ended up i did buy

[00:11:44] A dle 55 ra so we both have matching motors now and i also just because i've heard you should do this i bought the ring from bjorn you absolutely should and we will one of these days yeah i bought

[00:12:00] One too did i tell you about one you said you were going to i ordered one yeah did you yeah it's at the house now nice he's quick at shipping he's very quick i got it yesterday i was surprised it took

[00:12:10] Three days i think from the day i ordered it to the time it was delivered to my door yeah like i wasn't in a hurry but i guess some people when you order those might be i think i

[00:12:17] Actually submitted my order online sunday yeah and then showed up wednesday that's about right three days good deal amazing yeah we'll do a video one of these days on one of them on how to install one and i'll do a quick video on how to gap it properly yeah i bought mine gapped i was lazy okay we'll

[00:12:34] Check it anyway let it be done but that's what i thought let him take care of the hard work same price and then it's less for me to have to worry about yeah so yeah we'll get that installed and get that taken care of and hopefully i can fly this plane before too long i've got a few things but

[00:12:48] Not a ton to do to it we should take them both out together both telemasters i mean oh yeah i still be fun looking at that video i know i know i need to work with the control services i'm i want you to

[00:13:00] Take it home and just tighten i know we all have things going on but i want to i want to tighten that up because we had a little bit too much play for me we should do that before i go okay yes that way it's a long go yeah this yeah okay that way it's good for all summer i agree agree a lot okay we'll do that yep i'll i'll make sure you do that i guess i should say okay but yeah so we can have telemaster flights or something like that that would be fun gopro and hopefully footage too hopefully with a big one we can actually do some aero towing i would like that i've never done

[00:13:32] That before i haven't either i don't know how i haven't even seen it like except on like youtube me neither they have a big aero tow event at eli field i know we were supposed to go this last year something happened where i didn't even go yeah i can't remember what i was out early and then you decided not to go for some reason too i forget what it was i don't know but either way we got to make that telemaster the 12 foot telemaster is really really close speaking of eli field we'll talk closer as things get here but okay if you guys any of you guys are close to monticello illinois which is almost smack dab in the middle of the state a lot of events coming up out there this

[00:14:07] Year rc fest they've got the eli toe which i think is the weekend after rc fest i don't have a list in front i'm trying to think what else we talked about there's that there's a jet rally there's a jet rally or whatever it's called there's a bunch of rc car stuff coming up too drag racing they're doing all that kind of stuff there too yeah that's kind of cool it's going to be interesting there's all in all i think about like steve hope you're listening drag racing different kind of drag racing but maybe i mean you might be able to get the right

[00:14:34] Looking car for that camaro stuff i'm sure you can anyway if you can make it out we'll talk

[00:14:40] About it as time comes closer but it's definitely worth the drive to see rc fest especially because they have like horizon has all of their stuff there yeah airplanes cars all of it boats they have a little moat thing set up that you can do boats in in the moat a boat in the moat yeah

[00:14:58] The boat and it's just a lovely facility i mean it's a really nice facility it is especially if you want to fly there it's it's super super nice yeah i mean paved runways yeah paved runway lots of space

[00:15:11] It's it's almost like a i shouldn't say that but i'm going to anyway it's almost like mecca for people that have ever seen like saying that yeah it's for like the pilgrimage for people that have seen like all of horizons videos are shot there i mean you it's just kind of neat to be at eli field and actually see the place and fly there it's like being at a horizon like commercial exactly yeah

[00:15:32] Everything they and we currently producing will be there like for the events anyway and it's worth the

[00:15:39] Trip i think we're lucky based on where we are honestly because like i said for me to get there

[00:15:44] Is just under an hour and that's not a bad drive no that's not bad especially if you're not being there yeah for several hours to do some flying yeah it's not bad at all yep yeah that's all i'm

[00:15:54] Gonna say on that right okay like so we'll talk about dates as they become well as i have them in front of me like we it's all scheduled now and i don't have anything i mean anyway what's next oh speaking of ix 12s when we were talking about that earlier before i got sidetracked one of the things i found out that i'm sure i should have known but i didn't so okay so the ix 12 has text-to-speech on it to where you can flip a switch and program it to say whatever that switch

[00:16:24] Does you can also and i think you can do it on the dx series like i don't think the dx series the gen twos have text-to-speech but i think you can set files yeah i've done that mine has a custom file on it says speed break up speed break brown in my own goofy little voice how cool is that like why did i not know that i have piper now set up on her trainer port on her everything for her airplane to say what's going on in her voice that's cute i think it's awesome i need to figure out how to do

[00:16:54] That i told it's easy actually is it it's very easy i mean i have i have voice commands assigned to certain switches but it's the default voice yeah which is what most of mine are it would be

[00:17:05] Cool if i had someone else's voice though you could have lori do it i could have you do it oh hey dumb

[00:17:13] Guy why did you flip that switch oh i just genius idea oh we take each other's transmitters for a week program various voice commands to switches and then give them back without telling

[00:17:28] Them what we did but it has to be there has to be a base rule on that to where you can't do

[00:17:33] Anything backwards like you it has to be so that like this function has to be the function correct yeah they can be in whatever sort of that language you would like to i would get mine back the exact

[00:17:44] Same because you would have no clue how to do it i know how to youtube i could figure it out true

[00:17:49] That's i ended up having to do that for i figured it out online it's been so many years i can't remember but yeah yeah well i'm late to the game i'm always late to the game on things hey dummy claps her down or whatever reminds me my my old gps had a yeti setting really so yes instead of my british lady that speaks to me currently it would be in yeti gibberish which i have no idea why you would use that setting because it was literally gibberish and funny but it was hilarious yeah i always

[00:18:18] Opted for the british chick i always i prefer the british chick she always sounded hot i thought there should have been a rude setting on there well the british could get rude sometimes but she never said anything that was rude i mean like actually like berating the driver for missing a turn or

[00:18:33] Something yeah that's awesome yeah yeah why are we making yet another u-turn yeah hey dummy what are

[00:18:40] You doing oh okay so that was fun and the next thing on my list is not fun that i wanted to bring up so we gotta let's get somber for a moment okay clarence lee died yeah yeah we meant to talk about that on the last time we all recorded and we all forgot it's been a while yeah but yeah i thought it was something we actually needed to talk about a little bit just because it's it's a sad occurrence yep i don't know what happened actually but his wife and he both died a few days apart a few days apart yeah there was i think some sort of accident in the house that but it's still it's it's too bad

[00:19:15] Yeah it's very sad i mean the guy's a guy's a legend in the hobby i mean so he goes way back to the 40s and 50s the guy's genius when it came to two-stroke engines and yeah it's really sad so did you ever get one i did did you i didn't so i got a brand new one a clarence lee 61 which if if you don't know it's a kmb that was modified by clarence lee's hands himself and i bought a brand new one it was from another gentleman who had bought it from

[00:19:47] Clarence lee so it doesn't have the letter in there with not my name on it but it does have the the letter in there from clarence to the owner of the who bought the engine yeah so i did finally get when i i was late to the game when i finally called and talked to his wife i remember that he was not he was not doing engines at that time which snooze you lose right

[00:20:09] So but i got one anyway but did i remember right that it wasn't that he didn't want to do it he

[00:20:14] Couldn't get the engines anymore yeah yeah he was having he was having trouble sourcing some of the some of the components from yeah macoa at the time yeah so i believe it was what this story i

[00:20:25] Got from from mrs lee yeah for some like it kind of rings a bell now that you got one for some

[00:20:31] Reason i couldn't remember if you actually finally did it's it's safely in its in its box in my collection good and i've people hit me up all the time oh you should put it in this or you should put it in that and yeah i probably should but i'm not going to you do whatever you want with it yep i'm gonna nice and safe in its little box yeah yep that's a and it's i mean it's such a special engine that it means something to me so because i wanted one and i've always i remember when i first started flying everything was nitro right or or there

[00:21:07] Just wasn't electric and there was small amount of gas big quadras and things like that but so when i first started getting in the hobby and you're getting subscriptions to the magazines like flying models and model airplane news and rcm and all those he always wrote the the columns in there for the for the engines and i always just i read those like they were i mean because i'm an engine guy and yeah just reading like and he the detail that he would go into about why the porting is this way and how you measure the

[00:21:39] Timing on a two-stroke and all that kind of stuff i learned all that stuff just by reading his columns and to have an engine that was customized by his hands just means a lot to me so i'm not going

[00:21:50] To put that on an airplane yeah i don't i don't blame you don't chance it yeah now if you ever

[00:21:55] Find a second one maybe yeah yeah i mean if i could find a good quality good used one even

[00:22:00] I would absolutely put that on a something like a chaos or say chaos would be a perfect project yeah

[00:22:05] And so but yeah chaos is are easy enough to build plans are everywhere and those are pretty simple airplane and good flying airplanes too so if i find another like a used one or something

[00:22:15] I'll do that yeah cool like that i just want to make sure we hit on that because that was something we were woefully we missed yeah yeah those those the old guys like me and the older guys

[00:22:28] Even than me yeah that's definitely a a loss that that's felt by a lot of folks and

[00:22:34] We we'll miss him yeah okay happier note now happier note we got the short video of dave's rocket plane the me 163 uploaded to youtube and also to facebook yes yeah if you haven't

[00:22:51] Seen it go check it out now i'm gonna i'm gonna say i'm sorry that video that we posted is i mean obviously that's what happened on the second attempt with i'm telling you the one i should have recorded was the first time it happened first one boom yeah it was not a it was not a fizzle and a kind of a pop the first one was a actual explosion yeah yeah well i think we figured that the video

[00:23:17] We have was not actually the airplane or the the rocket motor blowing up it was the rocket motor blowing through the yeah blasting through the yeah yes still is an impressive short little video it was only i don't remember how many seconds it was but not many 32 seconds is that what it was yes oh i didn't even think it was oh that's well i think i slowed it down once then played it like

[00:23:40] Five times so you've got three three rockets leaving plus a takeoff and then diagnosis at the end

[00:23:47] Oh okay see he he's seen that more than i have and i'm the one that put it together yeah that's been a while so that's the problem like i my memory is just shot i don't know why i tell you for cell phone

[00:23:57] Footage that really looks good yeah it's pretty dang good yeah that was your phone right it was

[00:24:01] That was yours because i i had it too and mine was like you you had like literally i think a tenth of

[00:24:08] A second well i mean the video is longer than that but the actual the actual on in the frame for about

[00:24:14] A tenth of a second well because it just it's hard to keep up with that it is well that yeah i mean so

[00:24:19] Fast anyway plus it has a rocket motor on i mean for goodness sake i was zoomed out and then

[00:24:24] In post i was able to zoom in to see a little bit more of it which is why the video is not as great but it worked good enough yeah you can definitely see what happened and i love the sound

[00:24:33] In slow motion yeah i know anyway a hiss and then a pop was there i don't think there's a pop yes it's to me it reminded me of a of a i don't know what they could like a bottle rocket

[00:24:47] Sort of reminded me like oh yeah that i can see that yeah it reminded me of but the first one

[00:24:53] That was not on video when it was just dave and i that was a bang i mean it was literally i mean no well i mean it blew the fuselage apart yeah at the tail it did no offense there's no video so you can't really prove it no proof i know i mean i'm just so excited to see this thing take off and fire off with a rocket i didn't even think about getting my camera well the firewall is now installed

[00:25:15] It's not going to happen again hopefully we can make it out this weekend if we find a decent saturday with low wind and not cold cold yeah so yeah i want to get that test flown again before i

[00:25:26] Go through and patch all the heat damage and get it repainted yep yeah it's a good idea yeah i

[00:25:32] Understand that speaking of this weekend if the weather's decent i think i'm going to maiden my

[00:25:36] Electro streak same too dave i think mine's been ready to go for at least a week now yeah awesome

[00:25:41] How's yours coming ron that wasn't on the list of things to talk about i'm not oh i'm sorry

[00:25:48] No i have not started so that's on me well that's okay you have until march 1st so right march 20th or march 20th march 20th i think is spring okay well you got a month i'm still trying to think i want to do something different because it's i don't want to do the same thing like i know i want mine to be slow because that's me slow but i'm still not quite sure exactly what i want to do i get that have you ever run the power figures on yours yet

[00:26:17] Not yet okay i need to do that because mine were scary yeah yeah so dave's is finished and ready to

[00:26:24] Fly and he brought it over to the house my house the other night but it's been a week or so ago now to to weigh it because i have a handy dandy little scale 41 ounces 40 43 43 ounces actually for as much as you've done to it that's in my opinion that's pretty light i mean that yeah i added a lot of extra weight but what's really really awesome about this airplane is the fact that like when you run it up to full throttle it tries to like do everything it can to get out of your hands yeah so much power it's it's scary 800 828 watts he fired it up in my basement and

[00:27:00] Immediately it was a cloud of balsa dust in my basement because of all the air this thing was moving

[00:27:05] It slammed my door shut well it's got what a 35 inch prop or something

[00:27:11] It's a little lawnmower blade so it's funny you mentioned the wattage we we covered it in an the electric motor episode but like the average aerobatic plane is so many watts per pound right right and yours is like four times that three times three times so yeah it ought to be pretty fast i mean i don't think verticals can be a prop no i think torque could potentially be an

[00:27:37] Issue takeoff yeah you gotta have to be careful with that throttle yeah this is not a slam it to the firewall situation this is this is ease it in seriously though what size prop is that 13 8

[00:27:50] Sorry i couldn't help myself 13 8 what's the wingspan i don't remember it's it's small about half that

[00:27:59] Yeah i think i have a measurement but i think stupid i think it's like 33 inches or something like that no it's more than that isn't it is it i don't know it's not much more than that maybe it's 30 well no i guess it is i don't know i had like it's a few inches longer than my 36 inch scale so it's right around less than 40 inches but yeah it's tiny i don't know where my the wingspan

[00:28:21] Is i think it's 42 if i remember that's what i had in my mind okay so for reference the wingspan is

[00:28:27] Shorter than the span of the tail on the 12 foot telemat to give you an idea of the size of this

[00:28:33] Little guy and the prop folded almost touches the wing yeah yeah that's it's impressive much bigger

[00:28:38] It's impressive i can't wait well it's going to be scary but also very exciting now just be careful

[00:28:45] The first time you fly it because i want to get a picture of all of us with them so don't do anything well you have to build yours for that well that's why i said be careful the first time you fly it so that it doesn't have issues yeah i'm not planning on any high g things with this thing

[00:28:58] Because i don't want to pull it apart no but you're going to want to see how fast it is in a straight line i'm yeah but i'm not going to give it a take it up push the nose over and see what happens we're not going to do that i'm hoping well not right away i'm not right away not till i get mine

[00:29:11] Built yeah right we know dave folds wings ouch that hurts a little bit i used i mean fiberglass in

[00:29:20] The center and then i fully glassed the wing i'm i'm confident yeah you've reinforced it in all the

[00:29:26] Right places i'm confident it's not going to come apart yeah it's made of steel and whatever else i am

[00:29:32] A little concerned about aileron flutter at high speed yeah as you should be actually so i'm sorry if

[00:29:40] I can talk about mine real quick i well i can't talk about my i added the lights in the wing if you guys have been following discord you've seen that process but i made a huge mistake

[00:29:49] And i did this i didn't realize it until after i had already sheeted the wings but i ran my lights right along the trailing edge stock so there's no room for hinges right because you usually slot the trailing edge for the hinge yeah the lights are right on the back side of that so i did something i used to do way back in the day as i made a monocoat hinge for both ailerons and let me tell you that is super strong yeah so i am not worried about flutter interesting yeah i'm more worried about the flutter stripping the servo gears yeah well yeah i'm not worried about the speeds that yours is potentially going to be going yes and your ailerons are a little bit smaller than mine too

[00:30:22] So i think careful just be careful we got the tip plates on there hoping to keep the airflow over the way that'll probably help yep no vortex but yeah it's gonna it's gonna be awesome i can't wait to see both of them all three of them well you're gonna wait to see mine it's okay we'll get there

[00:30:39] Yeah i'd like to say i've been doing other things but i have not been doing well you have you've been buying airplanes i have not bought as many as i could have okay i'm only up three this year unless you count the one i got for crystal which i don't think you

[00:31:00] Should no that'll be on crystal's okay so i've only bought three for myself okay the note i have from our episode our last episode of 2022 says and i quote you don't have to quote it i'm getting rid of planes next year with the intent to make the list more refined were your words and then in quotes i have net negative so there you go can we just burn that or tear that up no point no that's my note and there's important stuff on here like joe and all planning and toledo by the way we're going

[00:31:35] To toledo everybody again we are the four of us actually daniel be coming with us yeah dave's

[00:31:41] Brother is going to be making the trek and we're going to buy airplanes actually no yes but wait a

[00:31:49] Minute i was like you're gonna buy airplanes there's no way you're not gonna buy airplanes i don't know

[00:31:53] We'll see i'm taking airplanes to that's what i was gonna say you guys are actually we're getting a table pretty much we have a table something for me just to sit under and not do anything on because i'm not going to be selling anything but you guys are what are you planning on taking like

[00:32:08] You're getting rid of some stuff yeah i think i'm taking my top flight 60 size p40 up oh

[00:32:15] I hate to see you get rid of that because it's beautiful but i understand yeah i've got too much

[00:32:21] Emotion in it it needs to go away and somewhere i can't see it again

[00:32:26] Yeah yeah i get it i've got that i've got the 40 size d7 i'm thinking probably it'll go and i got a whole box of stuff i've started pulling together including five starters so if anybody needs a starter i'm kind of cornered to market on solving starters right there you go probably make a good deal on it if you need one yeah or five yeah i got like a gms 25 in it i don't know what else i've thrown in that box i i have three 90 millimeter jet engines so

[00:32:56] Oh there you go let ddfs ddfs yeah two wispy control one without 90 mil that's a really popular size i can't imagine you'll have any trouble with it all getting rid of that yeah

[00:33:05] And all this is going cheap yeah yeah see i hate hearing that this is when my hoarding self comes

[00:33:12] In well you guys are martin well they're rubbish in my box yeah so i'm not even going to make it to toledo and ron's already bought half the stuff i was planning on taking no but i do want one of the

[00:33:20] Planes you're talking about getting rid of that's what i'm talking about that's not half oh that is half he said you're gonna take a couple of yeah well so what i mean so i'm gonna take the the pits

[00:33:29] I did not fall in love with that like i anticipated that i would so even though it flies great the dave

[00:33:35] Patrick pits no no this is the the sir mark the red and white one dave patrick's ultimate right yes

[00:33:41] Yeah i'm an idiot see i don't know that's okay you're not an idiot thank you just biplanes aren't your thing so you don't know them but anyway it's a good great flying airplane it's in pretty good shape has the ys 120 on it anyway i'm gonna take that i'm gonna take a couple of arfs well one i haven't decided which one yet i might take a couple of kits that i'm probably never going

[00:34:03] To build and then yeah like dave i'll be accumulating a box of just random stuff to take

[00:34:08] To to get rid of and do you want to talk about what we're taking like from the podcast

[00:34:16] Yeah i don't know what we're taking what do you mean well if you're interested in building

[00:34:21] An electro streak and you weren't in on the original oh purchase of the short kits we may

[00:34:25] Have a few available at the show possibly i said may may say we will yeah we're thinking about taking or cutting just a few of maybe four or five something like that and taking them up with us

[00:34:35] I think i'm gonna have lori make make a few shirts to have available there too so they'll be not crazy expensive we'll try to get out what we have in them but yeah yeah a few

[00:34:45] Shirts and some hopefully some short kits made by lori yeah yeah that'll be cool and stickers

[00:34:52] Yeah we'll have stickers business cards all that come see us and but the real reason we're getting the booth is is really not so we can advertise the podcast let's be honest well the reason i thought

[00:35:05] We were getting it might not be the reason that you guys had originally thought yeah i'm not going

[00:35:10] To need a table to accumulate all the stuff i'm buying i thought that's why we were getting it

[00:35:14] Like that's what we said last year we should get a table so we have a place to put everything

[00:35:18] Base operations so you don't have to go back and forth in the car so many times

[00:35:21] Right and now you guys are like well i'm not buying anything i didn't say i wasn't buying anything

[00:35:25] Oh no i didn't say swap me it's a swap me so sell stuff to buy stuff that's kind of what my motto my mantra is for for this trip what i mean yeah well i don't have anything because well i mean let's be honest i don't have near what i had last year to spend meaning that's so so if i don't sell

[00:35:45] Some stuff i'm not buying some stuff if what i'm saying yeah and i've got to watch also because like this year crystal's doing a couple trips for her work she's i don't even know where she's going but there's a couple convention things that are several day long things and then honestly joe knoll is expensive yes it is i'm so excited i can't it's going to be so much fun sorry i can't i'm sorry i'm actually very sorry you can't make it either next year

[00:36:13] If we go back well he's got to accumulate leave well i've got to accumulate leave and then there's family members i have to think about keep in mind yeah i mean they have like dog sitters is

[00:36:24] There a thing like that for fat should i not have said no no i'm getting that look you're talking

[00:36:30] About like wife sitters is that what you're that's kind of what i was i didn't know if that

[00:36:33] Was a family i was talking about sorry if i was rude well that's not that far from florida

[00:36:38] It's not there you go what another eight ish hours but i don't know how far is tampa i don't know probably not even eight hours probably less than an airplane i mean we could take and make a drop and run and come back something to think about for maybe next year because i'm sure once we are done with joe knoll this year we will we will probably be sold on it and want to do it

[00:36:59] Again i can imagine as long as schedules work out i can't imagine why not yeah perry's out for me this year we've already out for us so maybe next year but yeah so joe knoll do you i mean i don't

[00:37:14] Know what else yeah i'm i'm super super excited we've ron is so excited about joe knoll that he bought an airplane just to specifically for to joe knoll well i should have waited

[00:37:28] I actually really should have waited so here's what happened and this is one of the airplanes you made fun of me for buying because long story short jeff arsenault i don't know if you guys remember us talking i remember yeah i know you do i meant our listeners well you were looking at me

[00:37:43] Should i close my eyes and you said i don't know if you remember like when i said if i look at you dave and i say i don't know if you remember i said you what do you think i did i say you guys

[00:37:53] And i think i did this with my hand that nobody can see like the general you get anyway but anyway we need a swirly music thing going we that was halloween anyway we talked to him about joe knoll and stuff and we've kind after we started talking about joe knoll the the last time this year we said we were thinking about going he reached out and said if you have any questions and stuff let him know and i think i don't know if you've been in touch with him or not but i have a couple times one of the things he said was to them the best place to be is on the float line

[00:38:26] I've never flown a plane with floats i've only done it once well i didn't have a plane with floats

[00:38:34] So of course what do you do after you hear that well you go online you start learning e-flight had a couple different options and i didn't want anything expensive right like because i knew that there's a lot of people going to be here i wanted a plane that i don't care about so if i lose it then it's gone and i'm okay does that make sense like it's replaceable if something happens to it this is still made it's still replaceable i have no yes it's current production yes having said that horizons out of the twin otter is what i what i honed in on

[00:39:06] At first they had the oh what was it turbo timber i think is another one that came with floats okay i think that was the one i could be wrong and then the twin otter was another one that came with floats and i really liked the look of that it's a cool looking airplane i mean it is how can you not like it so they were out of them with i don't know if it was april or may they're supposed to get them back in which does me no good because may is when we're going to be going to joe and all so i kind of weighed my options on do i wait to see if i can find anything

[00:39:39] In toledo but then it's like what am i buying like i won't have a lot of time to get it ready with all the other stuff we have to get ready for joe and all yes so brian once again saves the day went up there with crystal and piper because crystal wanted to look at more covering for her a little airplane she's making and he had one in stock he had one one just one he just had a bunch he had one so that told me that i probably needed to buy it and yeah you needed to buy it there is

[00:40:15] Nothing like crystal's cool about stuff she really is but there's just this uncomfortable feeling of having her behind you when you're talking about buying a new airplane when i think i might have said on the way out that i'm not buying an airplane i i think we say that i think she ever

[00:40:33] Believes me so that's okay plus i have this note right here and so i asked her after i talked to

[00:40:40] Brian about price and all that kind of stuff i said honey do you care if i buy this airplane and she of course gives me the i don't care what you do which sounds like it might be a negative thing but i actually think this time she really didn't it's fine it's fine it's all fine i think she expected that to happen she probably did not only that she's smart she's not a dummy she was and piper was excited about it she liked the look of the airplane she'll probably never want to fly it because it's piper she goes hot to cold on things so quickly but anyway so the nice thing

[00:41:16] About that is that the the batteries that it can take i already have two of perfect the 3s 2200s which i'll talk about that in a minute okay so ended up buying that and then i just felt like i felt i was apologizing for some reason i'm like i'm sorry honey i wasn't like it's and she just keeps telling me it's okay but i just i don't know why it's like ingrained in me to feel bad i don't

[00:41:41] Know why that's weird i mean this is literally out of money especially coming from you because you are you you take people at their word and if she says it's okay then i know i do so it's weird for you to tell me that you were uncomfortable i know after she said okay i expect you to be

[00:41:55] Honest with me whoever you are yes and what you say is i'm not going to read between the lines right you tell me something that is how i how i read into that's why it surprises me but i just there's a little uncomfortable like i said even though it was weird because that money that it came out of is literally money set aside for hobby funds i mean that's that's what it's blow money for that right so but anyway we we got it done i think that was only like the first or third or fifth whatever airplane i bought in front of her and there's just there's just something when the actual dollar figure comes out yeah and you can tell in her mind she's like oh we could have done

[00:42:29] This or we could have done that but take you well that's you reading between the lines and i shouldn't have which is why i think i i'm gonna stop doing that again so i also oh go ahead well so i wanted to go back to the battery thing so looking it up online it said 3s 2200 milliamp hour batteries had a couple of them got at home was reading the manual and then it said you could use that or 3s 3200

[00:42:53] Milliamp hour batteries here we go 15 000 milliamp so well if it says you can use 3300 i could

[00:43:04] Probably put a 5200 or 50 why stop there why not i don't have i probably could honestly if it would

[00:43:11] Take a 4s but so here's my thing and this is this is where i i i get myself in trouble because i overthink things and then things get expensive and blah blah blah so the new 3200 milliamp hour spectrum g2 smart batteries are those just sound expensive 50 a piece i mean not bad well but now this is where we also get into problems so they're a bigger battery so if i want them to charge fast which i do i'm going to need to buy the other charger another charger but the part that makes this

[00:43:46] More palatable yeah it makes more sense in my mind is the other airplane i was thinking about taking to joan all which i i haven't fully decided on it yet but anyway is the old super sportster i haven't flown that thing for years and that's a great flying airplane which we say about literally every airplane that we but that one truly is and that one is supposed to be flown on a 3800 milliamp hour battery and i don't have any of those figure 33 by the way 33 i'm going down

[00:44:17] Gentlemen yeah and that's actually overpowering yes i understand so i'll be able to use that battery and that would also lower the amount of batteries i need to take with me if i could get away with only taking four or five batteries whatever i have if i buy two it'd be four for those yeah then i i think that would work out just fine for what we have to fly and i don't have to worry about lugging a bunch of stuff yeah no that makes sense and we're taking the golf cart yes we are the other thing that we everybody i've talked to said you have to have a golf cart and we

[00:44:47] Looked it's like 90 bucks a day to rent a golf cart so it makes more sense just to bring mine what i like about that and i've got to do some things to it we'll be able to charge our batteries

[00:44:58] Right off of the golf cart while we're you'll be able to charge your batteries well i want you you're taking electric i'm not taking electrics you're not gonna take like a little ultrax or something like that nah really i'm just taking the stick man that's the only that's it really i'm taking the stick because it's already set up for the gopro yeah so we can get video i guess i have a set of floats that dave actually gave me a great idea to the for the goldberg ultimate i'm sorry cub cub thank you excuse me and they're a perfect match for the 60 size stick so with

[00:45:32] Some small changes to the fuselage i'll be able to swap from tricycle to floats so i'll be

[00:45:38] Able to do it all with one airplane okay and that's i can see that being a point so maybe i've got to like i really want to take a balsa plane like there's just something in me that i want a balsa plane to go with me i'm thinking of remotoring it for this too really taking the os off but what on

[00:45:54] I mean i love that i mean i'm not a huge fan of plane bearing engines but and that engine has been fantastic but with the added weight and drag it's an la 40 okay i'm sorry i take that back to la 65 but with the added weight of the floats and the drag i think a little more power might be in order a couple more ponies what do you think about putting on it well i have all these ys120s just sitting around not doing nothing we overpower right so i'm thinking about putting

[00:46:20] One of those 828 watts length you're going to be spending on fuel what i spend on batteries

[00:46:26] Easily yes okay i guess that makes me feel but i i do have quite a few gallons of that ys 2020 blend that's just sitting there and i don't want it to go bad you don't we're not going to be flying a trimotor anytime soon oh we have i mean that really upsets me well i mean and this year is realistically yeah realistically that fuel is going to be sitting at least another year so i'll may as well use it i yeah so that's what i'm kind of thinking about doing with with the stick okay that's a good idea i think i don't think a little more power with the

[00:47:00] Floats and stuff is a bad thing as long as it balances which it should and see i i almost

[00:47:06] Would like to find a place to fly like that little pond that's at our is that one that you can fly

[00:47:12] Off of i mentioned that to dave and he brought up a really good point there's we'll go ahead dave

[00:47:17] The approaches are really bad trees and very tall weeds weeds the approach i've looked at that several times and it's like no okay i didn't know if there was i mean we have lakes right there's

[00:47:31] Plenty of i didn't think and we have a pontoon boat and dave has access to it i actually i think

[00:47:36] Back in the nature preserve area where there's no boat traffic yep and it's very shallow there by the way it typically is about three foot deep yep so that'd be ideal if we have to retrieve

[00:47:46] Something well it should all float right i mean are you wanting to fly yours first i would like to

[00:47:52] Yeah but if i i mean we're looking at may i'm not sure we'll have i know time i mean time

[00:47:58] It's amazing how fast time is going along as it balances i was gonna say especially with toledo

[00:48:02] And all that stuff too coming up right and i have several a couple of other work trips

[00:48:07] Like i want to be gone most of march oh my gosh so so yeah we can grab the pontoon boat pretty much

[00:48:13] Anytime we want and yeah okay but anyway yeah we're excited i'm super excited we'll talk about it again as it gets closer yes because you won't be able to not hear us talk about we're going to get excited i know as we get more stuff planned out like we're officially signed up as pilots yep but we don't yet have camping stuff taken care of we're going to camp on site everybody i've heard from says camp on site is a must and golf cart is a must those are the two things that literally everybody i have talked to which is like not a lot now it's more than two might be three but anyway they said

[00:48:46] That's that's the best way to do it because the place i guess is just big it's good it's good to have

[00:48:52] That gouge ahead of time because yeah i mean i would assume most folks that have gone the first time without it would just show up and be like okay we've got a hotel that's 15 miles or whatever it is away yeah yeah this way is going to be way better and it's 24 hour flying yeah i mean like you might want to think about taking that tiny ultrax or the or the electro streak if it if it proves to be a nice flyer because mine's lit i know mine will be okay if it ever gets built right

[00:49:24] On what else oh we went next we went flying remember going we did yeah that was a while ago but yeah this is so my my list is just like out of order now but that's okay joe noll wasn't supposed to come till later but what we we're excited but yeah so i finally got to fly the lazy bee i will admit dave mommy

[00:49:51] Here it comes you're like flying a rubber band no you were both correct oh yeah i got you now and the fact that i should have steadied my control rods a little bit better than i did it supported supported supported them along the so i use the the nye rods is that what they're called with tube and tube yeah yeah and apparently i didn't set those up right i'd never done it before so i figured it was okay you guys told me it wasn't and i honestly forgot before it was time

[00:50:24] To go out and then it flies okay low throttle which it doesn't need much no it doesn't low throttle it's a fun slow flyer but as soon as you get going too fast it starts to do the little porpoise thing because the control horns aren't really strong enough but i'm very push rods push rods sorry i'm happy i split the elevator oh yeah because that actually gives you some aileron control that's pretty neat yeah and it was it flies well i think it's gonna be a lot more fun to fly once i

[00:50:56] Get it fixed once you fix and i can't wait to do that and get it back out yep so i flew that one

[00:51:00] It looks cool it looks cool in the air too it's a bee come on it's cool how can you not like it

[00:51:05] It's so ugly it needs windows though i'm not done yet okay like i know i want to do that and i actually want to get a mount inside so i can put a camera in it and i also want to somehow find a pilot for it but yeah so i flew that one you saw the erratics fly when we were out there i got well no actually that was when i just got a couple flights in on that i forgot about that that was the day it just hit me i charged my darn transmitter oh yeah the whole night and i thought you charged it i well so i even texted you and said hey don't forget to charge your

[00:51:37] Transmitter and you're like it's on it's on the charge don't worry and so on the way out there i know it takes a little bit of time to boot up not as much time as mine but yeah so i thought well it's cold and it's not yet windy tommy's still putting because you were already out there by the time i was on the way out and i knew you were still putting your stuff together and i thought i'm gonna go out there and just get a couple flights in quick so i can start adding to my number and actually start getting some flights in because i've been trying as much as i can to fly yes

[00:52:08] It would not turn on there was no charge in the battery like i don't know what happened to where it just that's drained itself or something instead of charging so you were good enough to let it or let me switch batteries back and forth and it was a lot of playing with are you finished with the transmitter let me turn it off and use your battery in mine and then charging mine while

[00:52:28] I was in yours and we couldn't fly like simultaneously so that because you had the battery for my transmitter in yours and yeah whenever i need to fly then yeah and it was cold it was which didn't

[00:52:40] Help much either but we made it through makes me sad i missed this clown show yeah it was pretty

[00:52:47] Bad we're the only two out there yeah that part of it was nice but it was really cold i mean like five minutes was a flying was enough for me my hands were numb and sore and then we'd have to sit

[00:52:57] In the car and warm them up yeah yeah well it got colder and windier as the day went on so that's why we we got out to the field at seven seven to try and beat that because as you watch the weather it's supposed to get windier and windier as the day went on yeah so it happened it was okay but i also flew the miss vintage i hadn't done that one since last year i wanted to get a couple flights on that only got one once again it was just the the weather and stuff we were dealing with but that's a good flying airplane too it is as we say about i like that once again most of them i really do

[00:53:28] Like that that we fly hopefully if you ever get rid of that one it won't leave like the group

[00:53:33] Election yeah yeah that's a good flying airplane i don't get rid of things so it probably

[00:53:37] Won't happen which is fine i don't crash it i'd be very sad because it flies good if i was to crash that plane and i like the current color i know you don't like it but i like the transparent red with the with the stained wood i think it looks really sharp i think that was the way it was designed

[00:53:51] To be so that might be how it gets left maybe nice i mean i i'm not doing anything with it now even though there's clear packaging tape holding it together on some of the spots because it's it's just a plane like that yes but yeah it flies good so that was our day on that would you fly

[00:54:08] I took the big sbock the big guy and i did not forget the fuel this time so i actually got had some trouble getting it going though i mean i i don't remember that one being easy to flood but it flooded quite easily i yeah consider but once i got it going yeah we've got what four i think i need to update my spreadsheet but i got four flights and so that tank is good for at least 30 minutes yeah which by the way that's a 24 ounce tank and what just so 50 cc it's a well

[00:54:37] That's a 40 cc twin but yeah 50 that's different that probably uses a lot less fuel sure because that means it's 220s sure sure twins are really efficient yeah gosh god anyway oh on that lazy b i when i got it it had a 12.6 propeller on it i don't know how it flew that i put the four cell battery on it that the guy said it took and there was like no thrust whatsoever so i don't know how they flew it on that so i ended up changing out to a a 14 12 and it's huge difference and even with that one it's only

[00:55:13] Pulling 36 and it's got plenty of go i mean like you were nice enough to let me take the sticks for a flight which it was awful your landing was much better than mine but anyway yeah it has plenty plenty of power like i can't imagine you flying it at much more than quarter throttle to be honest

[00:55:30] Which makes me think that maybe that 12 7 or 12 6 whatever it was would have been enough

[00:55:35] Maybe yeah like a wide open maybe it sounds cool but like it's not going anywhere yeah that was the

[00:55:41] Other thing i didn't want something that would be super like fast yeah i want it's definitely not that rpm and with 4s it only turned to like 4500 rpm something like that yeah so there's not

[00:55:53] A little on the slow side yeah if it's got plenty of power though i mean you okay excuse me i need a drink yeah continue to talk but yeah it has has plenty of power but yeah you need to fix the push rods yeah we can make it a lot more fun yeah yeah it wasn't fun above half throttle to be honest it wasn't fun to fly because i want to get it to where i don't have to worry about anything

[00:56:14] With that to where it's just a easy sunday flyer yeah should it should get there it should get there if you fix the push rods and stuff yeah and the nice thing about putting it together too is that the wing has no ailerons on it so it's a very simple two bolts that hold the wing on you

[00:56:30] Don't hook any electronics up it's and you got the cool little battery tray that you made that slides right in yeah it's cool i like it yep be a good one what else should we talk about i don't know at some point we're probably going to talk about covering huh you want to talk about covering now

[00:56:43] Is there anything left on your list i don't think so i think we we covered most oh i tell you what one other one other really quick thing so when i was working on that the lazy b i used attack to figure out what the rpm was in my basement okay why are you how does that work why are you laughing i just go ahead continue well no hold on why because what's wrong with that because it reads 3600 yeah that's what i didn't know that didn't work for me wow see i feel like

[00:57:15] An idiot again you're not an idiot everybody does it you just didn't know i didn't now why is this reading 3600 no matter what rpm i'm at okay so i'm gonna be honest i figured that was just because

[00:57:25] We have led bulbs down here is it not the led or is it incandescent 60 hertz it's so incandescent does it too yes really yep i like i said it worked fine well okay so i guess i i'll admit to it whatever it worked okay and it was probably kind of dangerous i turned all the lights off oh let's spin up a propeller in the dark with sharp yeah in my defense in the dark i did use the the flashlight on my phone so we're juggling an airplane a phone a wide open throttle and attack

[00:58:01] How could this not be safe what could go wrong well i am missing fingers for a reason no everything worked out fine at least nobody had to show up and take you to the er so that's good

[00:58:12] Yeah reggie anyway i just i did not know that like i said now i feel like an even bigger idiot for the reaction i got from you guys well i mean let's be honest how often have you ever

[00:58:22] Used a tack oh not very often so and this is the first time in my and you've also got to ask how do

[00:58:29] We know it's going to read 3600 we found out the same way like i just i was shocked i like when i run engines out in my little garage there on the stand i have to point my tack i have to make a conscious effort to point the tack outside like out facing out of the garage because if i point it in it it picks up the shop lighting is as soon as i see 3600 turn around even out in my

[00:58:52] Driveway i have to make sure to turn the garage lights off because they'll even reflect on the

[00:58:56] Back of the propeller yeah it's crazy how far how far out it will actually catch that that's amazing

[00:59:01] Like like i said i figured it was because there were led lights in here that it does it fluorescent incandescent leds yeah okay crazy huh i don't know if that's me well anyway yeah let's talk about

[00:59:15] Covering yeah so buy the monoco now while you still can yeah let's let's talk about that really

[00:59:20] Quick yeah can you can you talk about what what yeah yeah so i i talked to the guys about it yeah so long story short a month or two ago there was a a big hullabaloo online i love you guys remember on facebook that horizon was discontinuing monocoat and everybody was kind of up in arms i know in a previous discussion we talked about how like you guys said it didn't make sense for horizon to have two brands of covering and kind of going down to one made sense since what is it monocoat was was their competitor for many many many years and then ultra code is one

[00:59:55] Hanger 9's been doing whatever it was so the story i got from someone who knows is that at the beginning of covid the so monocoat has a little uv resistant covering film fuel covering thing that goes on top of it well it's like a film on top of the film i guess whatever you want to call it that is supplied by 3m that price tripled yeah so the price on it went up quite a bit on monocoat

[01:00:27] And that i mean for that time of for that time of history what's what i'm looking for like at the beginning of covid everything was going up oh yeah we dealt with that and in my line of work everything was just ridiculous so also in that time frame with them trying to reorder they got to the point where looking at some of the most or more unpopular colors like not the the normal brown three yeah they would have had about a decade's worth of

[01:00:58] Inventory yeah because you have to meet minimum orders and things like that and so because of that they thought okay well we're going to discontinue those but we're going to stick with the main colors in monocoat they had three or four they wanted to keep going on yeah red yellow cub yellow blue exactly the popular ones that could actually make it worth selling long story short they went to place the order and the company that i think was somewhere out of nebraska i don't remember what i thought it was michigan but yeah either way maybe it was michigan they pretty much told

[01:01:29] Them no we're not making this for you anymore this is not really what we do they can make more money making car film and yeah all these it's not their primary source of yeah so it's not horizon's fault that monocoat is going away so don't hate on them because of that that's not it's not anything that they had their hand in really so i asked about ultra coat yeah what's the ultra coat is made in europe by or a cover yeah this better than i do and that is all they do is just rc

[01:02:02] Airplane covering so there is no at this point there's no conflict at least for the foreseeable future they're going to continue to manufacture there's no conflict in making it there's no thoughts of discontinuing it because that is what their business is oh good so good so at least we'll have ultra coat yeah yeah that's all i wanted to say on that now you guys can talk about covering

[01:02:21] Because i really yeah i'm sad because i i prefer monocoat there's i mean it's ford versus chevy right you talk to eight different guys and you'll get eight different opinions on which covering is the best or whatever yeah and it's not that i think monocoat is the best it's just the the covering that i'm most familiar with and it works for my heavy-handed application methods

[01:02:42] For me i'll use either one it doesn't really matter but given my druthers i prefer the ultra coat just it works better for me yep and but i am sad to see that monocoat's going away because it's yet another hobby staple that's no longer available to us right yep so there is thankfully

[01:03:03] Because they had to make such large orders when they when they called the manufacturer there's a lot of monocoat still out there like within the hobby shops and things like that so i but i expect that that will dry up as people become more aware so well and i mean like

[01:03:21] They still have stock of it right and they weren't completely out when they tried to order it so i mean there's still going to be some that you can get of the basic colors yeah well of all colors but when it's out there's some colors they don't have any more of oh they're out of already yeah well i guess my point is if you find some in stock order it now yeah and get what you want yeah or do you

[01:03:42] Know do what do what a lot of other folks are doing like myself and become familiar with ultra coat or some of the other value hobby stuff and i i as an alternative decided to try

[01:03:51] Some of the value hobby stuff and i was actually quite impressed it actually seems to work as well

[01:03:56] As ultra coat i was pretty comfortable with it ron and i tried it on the dualist projects last year or year before last man it's been that long it's crazy i know can you believe and i liked it

[01:04:05] As well well the e-streak over there is for the most part value hobby the looks fantastic new cover is that what it's called i don't know what they call their stuff china coat that's not

[01:04:16] What it's actually called i mean that's i know but it all that's where it probably comes from

[01:04:22] The red and the dark blue are monocoat scraps that i had laying around except for the vertical tail the vertical tail is the the new value cover cool i mean i'm i'm happy with when i use that stuff

[01:04:37] I don't have a lot of experience to know the difference between monocoat and ultra coat and to know how they apply versus what's better what's worse what does curves better what's worse on those but with the the few planes i've done i've i've always well really been a big fan of trying to save a few bucks yeah yes you are and i don't know how to take that one but anyway using the value cover for saying you're cheap without saying you're cheap okay but using that for the

[01:05:12] Difference in in cost you get so much more for the pretty much the same price yep that i mean yeah when you look at square foot price and all that stuff for what it did and for me not like i said having a lot to compare it to i'm i'm happy with that yeah but what i'll miss the most is is the

[01:05:28] Colors honestly yeah monocoat and ultra coat too they they do a lot of unique colors and ultra coat toyed with the the printed stuff the checkers and yeah carbon fiber look and all that stuff but some of the colors that monocoat made or was available in i'll miss like the metallic blue and the metallic teal and the wine and the purple and in those colors because they made great supplemental colors for trim and things like that i made the mistake crystal was

[01:05:58] Talking about when she was when we ordered that airplane for she asked what colors were available so i got out my old you remember the old sheets that you could get that had listed of all the monocoat colors with all the different transparencies the metallics the whatever else was on there and there was a lot of those she liked a lot of the odd pinkish colors the blue the teals and all that kind of stuff and it was disheartening when oh well you can't have that one oh you can't

[01:06:25] Have that one no that one's out too yeah back when i work in the shop we used to have that color

[01:06:31] Flip chart man i miss that thing yeah yeah well it doesn't be much good anymore because you can't get any oh it's ultra coat oh yeah yeah mine never gave us that nice right the one i got was monocoat and like i said sure enough you can't get any of that yeah those colors but we did at brian's he has

[01:06:51] A box shh don't tell people oh never mind no go ahead i'm just teasing so he's got a box covering

[01:06:57] That is not on the floor yeah a lot of stuff he's opened and used right they're mostly mostly they're

[01:07:04] Used rolls mostly and he lets us go through there and yeah i got quite a quite a haul when i was up

[01:07:11] There last we bought 10 rolls oh when you and crystal and i just went up yeah but that stuff

[01:07:16] None of us monocoat at least the stuff you showed me there's not one roll of monocoat in there well

[01:07:20] She went through and just picked colors she wanted and she ended up getting some off the shelf out front the actual ultra coat colors i think she got two or three brand new rolls of that wow but he spent a chunk of change on covering i let her do whatever she wanted yeah and i didn't feel bad about buying a plane yeah well you did you just didn't you're right i don't i remember i put this stuff but there was a couple rules in there i've never heard of before do you guys remember what it was microfilm no that was one of them well yeah but that stuff didn't excite me as much that

[01:07:51] Was stuff she bought oh the stuff i'm talking about was the the color the solar text or solar film

[01:07:57] They made both solar text was the fabric and yeah you got the fabric over there i think that's so

[01:08:03] Cool it's black and red brand new rolls of fabric that's paintable they've never done fabric before like i know it's neat i like it yeah i know dave has it's like all he does yeah this i haven't done

[01:08:16] Monocoat forever and why like why because i do scale stuff that's all fabric covered so i use a lot

[01:08:24] Of sig coverall and you do that just because of the scale look or because you like how it works well

[01:08:29] First off it's cheap the scale look and the fact that well and i like the paint it looks more

[01:08:36] Realistic than the plastic airplane look yeah i can see that how like compare price on that to

[01:08:45] Monocoat oh man i buy five square yards for god it's been forever since i bought any bucks maybe

[01:08:50] Yeah 10 to 12 bucks yeah oh really no but i mean to be fair to be fair you have to buy the stuff that

[01:08:58] You use to stick it yeah there's a lot more that goes along with it yeah but for the most part i like it's not so much the cheapness yes it is less expensive per square foot but it's the more realistic finish you get with a painted finish yeah i agree is it especially on something scale

[01:09:12] Is it heavier can be depends on how much paint you put on yeah is that so the actual like because monocoat or whatever covering like that is light oh i would say per square foot yeah you're not

[01:09:25] Going to get much lighter than the film type right no no but for a scale world war one and then

[01:09:30] The durability factor i dare you drop a screwdriver on your monocoat covered wing yeah so those are a

[01:09:36] Lot stronger too oh yeah so how what's the what's the basic process then for me who actually i think i bought some of the the covering stuff the what's it called coverall the coverall yeah you bought some in toledo last year but i still haven't touched it go over just a quick what do i do if i

[01:09:55] Want so your basic prep finish is just like any other iron-on covering you're going to make sure it's nice and sanded no lumps no bumps etc once you get it nice and clean you take your adhesive whatever you use i use the sig stick it because well i have a giant can of it i've been working out it for years and is that still available yes it is okay well last time we checked last time

[01:10:19] We checked who knows and this is this is a material that yeah you brush on out of a can it's basically a liquid adhesive right you brush it on the airframe you let it dry and now you have the heat activated

[01:10:29] Glue that will adhere the covering to so you can even spray it if you want wow i've done it i mean

[01:10:37] It makes a bit that's smelly yeah i would think that would just get the aerosols in the air everywhere

[01:10:42] But yeah you put that on then you put your fabric on just like you would take an iron on any other monocoat ultra coat and i'm just going to use monocoat as a generic term for any iron yes okay you would take and cut your fabric to the size that you need and you iron it on just like any other iron-on covering the difference is because it does not have the adhesive on it anytime you go to an overlap you have to stop a minute brush on a little more adhesive to the overlap and then let it sit for five minutes

[01:11:16] I mean seriously go to the bathroom it's not a big deal come back and iron it back in place now your iron will get nice and gooey okay i'll let you in on that little secret to clean it up just and for some reason or another it doesn't come off for me very well when it's cold your iron needs to be hot i take a paper towel saturate with acetone rub it hot iron back and forth on it cleans it right off and you're good to go i don't know why it doesn't work like when it's cold but yeah that's strange of course don't breathe the acetone fingers yeah this whole process is bad

[01:11:49] For you by the way so make sure you use plenty of ventilation yeah that's what's so the cover

[01:11:53] All is what's on my on my softwood camel i mean that's the process same exact process i instead of i had some cover right what's it called gosh dang i can't remember yeah the cover right version whatever but same yeah it's it's literally just like ironing on regular film except you the added step of you're brushing the adhesive on because it's not already on the material and then do you shrink it like

[01:12:26] Normal film exactly and it shrinks wonderfully doesn't really you can actually hear it crushing

[01:12:31] Yeah if you're not careful yeah it's very high shrink the the fabric is yeah ah yep and then cotton i mean just like you take un pre-shrunk like clothing and put it in the dryer and

[01:12:43] Shirt the same idea okay yeah i thought that was an old wife's tail no you will go through a ton of razor blades this stuff is incredibly hard on blades but man once it's on it doesn't move yeah you you have a hard time i've re-shrunk stuff once every 10 years it's not like monocoat where every summer you go out and you have to or ultra coat ultra coat yeah where you have to re-shrink it constantly once this stuff shrinks it pretty much stays shrunk yeah and if it does develop a wrinkle it just goes away very quickly easily but so anyway you take and cut it trim it just like

[01:13:18] You would any other iron uncovering then the next step is you do have to seal the material it is air will go right through it so they recommend that you use butyrate dope i think it is yeah that's old school that's old school i don't use that stuff i've used it once that way i have found much better

[01:13:37] Results with water-based polyurethane yeah and the water-based polyurethane doesn't shrink like

[01:13:42] Beauty rate dope does right so just like a the aerosol can or no i just make it out of the can i get a foam brush and literally actually sometimes i don't even use a brush sometimes i just use a folded up paper towel and just literally pour it on and smoosh it around saturate the cloth and yeah so it

[01:13:57] Leaves a decent finish on then when you do that yeah well usually you're going to paint it anyway well

[01:14:01] Then you go back like there's not like runs and drips and if there is just like 220 and they sand

[01:14:07] Perfectly smooth yeah and then you'll have a lot of little fringes where you cut and trim there's two ways of dealing with those once you dope them or polyurethane them usually you can just hit them with like 220 sandpaper and just knock them right off every now and then i get a few that just don't want to sand out for some reason or another i just take a lighter to them and watch them just shrivel away okay i've done that on the end of ropes before same idea gotcha yep and then once you have that polyurethane on there and got it all sealed up my favorite is latex house paint

[01:14:39] Go to lowe's and three dollars a bottle and yeah match up the color you want and either spray it or

[01:14:44] Brush it and then it's gasoline proof it's relatively glow fuel proof i would for glow fuel i would i think i would go ahead and put a top i usually polyurethane poly but yeah see that doesn't sound as as difficult as i had in my mind it's a lot more work than an iron-on finish but the results are much better in my book especially for a scaler for a scaler craft yeah like on a cub

[01:15:07] You would not find a better looking covering an east street without every fabric not worth the effort

[01:15:13] Yeah exactly that's you got to pick the right plane for it but yeah that doesn't sound yeah it's not

[01:15:17] Hard now we're not we're not talking about the the old school dope and fabric now that's that's a different story so together yeah so can dope or fabric and dope but it's not a lot of i mean and that's an art really what's like i've tried that before and that is something i've done

[01:15:34] The dope and paper and i do not have the patience for it so it's kind of the same idea you take your

[01:15:38] Fabric well first you coat you get the airframe ready and then you coat the airframe with one or two coats of dope which is a for lack of a better term it's like a lacquer it's basically lacquer clear terms yeah like oil-based yeah oh yeah so you coat the airframe in it sanded between coats get it nice and smooth and then you lay your fabric on top of that right and the fabric you can use any type of fabric you can use fiberglass really lightweight fiberglass lightweight cloth lightweight cloth paper tissue coverall whatever type of fabric you want to put on it

[01:16:12] You lay that on the it has to be permeable yes that's very important because the how you actually adhere it to the airplane is you take more dope and you paint it around the edges and the dope saturates the cloth and then reacts and softens the dope underneath it and then when it cures it acts like a glue yeah it glues it all together glues it all together and then and then from there you shrink it because the fabric shrinks with heat and then dope if you apply it with beauty rate there's there's butyrate nitrate there's nitrate dope and butyrate dope and they have different

[01:16:44] Shrink qualities and then you paint the airframe with that and shrink it and then you come back with your top coat like you would with dave's method but it's a pretty involved process

[01:16:56] And very very very smelly like a lot of chemicals i think there's even a problem getting this stuff in

[01:17:02] California yeah there could be i've done it i've used it like i said i tried it once many years ago and i i won't do it again the the fumes alone like are very potent yeah i remember getting

[01:17:17] In the shop we'd order or order stuff from sig and i'd open the box and there'd be nitrate dope in there it's like i don't even have to look in the box to see which box it is just when it came in the

[01:17:25] Door you dope's in that one yeah it's very very pungent and yeah it will it will kill brain cells

[01:17:33] And so that's why it's not done much apparently anymore well and it's an art too i mean to to do

[01:17:39] It and to make it beautiful people who could do it like they can make it look as good as any shiny film covering but unfortunately it takes a lot of work and a lot of time and a lot of skill which i don't have any of those things to make look good so at this point i'll stick with the coverall and the sig sticks it and and it's a comfortable process it's not difficult and it's

[01:18:02] Durable yeah easier easy to repair as well if you have a boo-boo oh okay i hadn't thought of that

[01:18:08] Patches are easy huh so there you go i might have to try that sometime and that all differs from from the films i don't know how deep we wanted to go but go as deep as you ultra code and monaco they have their unique properties but they both share the same basically the same process for applying them you just clean up your airframe and then you iron this stuff on with an iron i mean it's just at its at its very basic principle that's how these coverings are done you iron them on you stick them to the airframe and then you come back with heat and shrink them and

[01:18:39] Make it smooth yeah that's the only drawback in my book the coverall is having to go back and put

[01:18:44] More dope on your overlaps yeah yeah and the main difference between monocoat and ultra code even though monocoat to some degree has these qualities if you're if you're really really familiar with it but ultra code has the multi-temperature thing right so it has it has a temperature at which it activates the adhesive right so you can iron it and stick it which one does sorry ultra code okay the gold or the hanger 9 stuff so there's a heat activation temperature and then there's your initial shrink and then there's stages of shrink and then there's final shrink which it

[01:19:15] Won't shrink anymore once you hit that stage monocoat kind of works the same way if you they don't advertise it but it it has sort of that same kind of range but the thing i like about monocoat is that you can go back and re-shrink it even after you've like taken the max heat to it it will shrink again if it sags whereas ultra code once you've reached that temperature it takes a higher temperature to get it to get it going more yeah and then once you've reached that max you're done you reach your melt point that's why you see so many ultra code airplanes out there with sags in them one of

[01:19:50] The last i don't remember what airplane it was i was covering with the the value hoppy stuff so there was no temperature gauge on there for where to start and i went online and looked and found the actual temperature that you're supposed to use to stick it i made sure i was at that temperature use the little handy thermometer thing yeah the covering thing that i'm jealous of that you can't get anymore you have one right no i don't i'll give you one i got two of them oh thank you i bought one extra to have as a spare thank you i thought you had one i don't have one

[01:20:22] Remind me before you go anyway and so i went to that temperature and put the covering on went oh it was on the doesn't matter but it was on the lazy b put the covering on went right over it and the whole thing just shriveled right underneath me so i was way too hot oh my even though it was a temperature they said to use oh okay that's good so it's good to test that on another part what kind of made me mad on that one was the fact that that was the very long piece that i had to cut it was what 40 48 inches 49 inches for the side of the fuselage and it's different temperatures for

[01:21:00] Different colors oh that's like the yellow was fine at that temperature but the black was a lower temperature that i needed to be at in order to make it stick without just shriveling up

[01:21:10] Like see that's frustrating because the monocoat like on my iron and this goes for both of my irons i have what on my 21st century iron and also my old hanger 9 iron i have a the old one has the dial right i have sharpie marks on the thing i always use a sock yeah not always but i try to always and it takes a little bit more heat yeah it changes if you yeah but i have marks on my dial so that i can quick reference i know what to do but the test is right if i'm using a covering that i'm not familiar with like i think i did this with the value hobby stuff is just take your iron flip

[01:21:42] It upside down cut yourself a small square of the covering lay it on your iron and if it starts to curl then you're too hot oh didn't curl yeah because if it curls i didn't then you just

[01:21:52] Try to shrink yeah yeah i'm so glad you guys are scientific about it this is how i check my iron temperature all right so typically when i'm working on the airplanes and covering i typically wear sweats for a couple of reasons first off comfort and then i don't want to scratch anything or whatever so i'm usually using sweats and for my initial tack i will take and my iron and turn it on and iron the inside of my thigh why would you do that so i've done that feels if it feels nice and warm and comfy that's a good tack yeah if it's burning i'm too

[01:22:27] If this hurts turn it down so i that just seems so wrong so i do the same thing like so if i'm changing colors let's say that usually means i'm going from shrinking to a sticking well my iron is is at the shrink temperature and i need to so you burn off the extra heat on

[01:22:45] Your leg don't you yes i do same thing i i look like an idiot and i just wave mine around in the

[01:22:51] Air iron your thigh you'll love us i don't think i want to do that it doesn't hurt especially if you're wearing jeans just out there in the summer when we were in shorts yeah i was gonna say i can

[01:23:01] See with my luck i'd have nylon whatever melt them yeah i just completely shrink and melt yeah no i

[01:23:08] Just pick the iron to my pant and take off some of that extra heat and then now i'm back

[01:23:12] It's amazing how fast sweats will pull out heat out i bet yeah burns do that also so so anyway

[01:23:17] That's that's in a nutshell covering if if we didn't go deep enough then we can maybe

[01:23:22] Attack it later well a quick question for you then let's let's say you have going cleaning it up

[01:23:27] You use sharpies or whatever on it oh alcohol take your sharpie right off if you got excess glue and goo and stuff on it acetone for the most part your iron ons are all for some reason are repellent acetone however don't get it on a seam because you can wick it underneath and soften up your joint

[01:23:48] Yeah yep cool sorry that's fine no i was just gonna say so if somebody has never cut like i had never done the the sig coverall stuff so now i have a little bit more information on how to do that for somebody that has never covered an airplane before and wants to do it doesn't know where to start yeah let's talk about really quickly tools okay technique yep and what to not do okay so

[01:24:14] I'll start with the weighing of the giant piece of material yeah start small wait was that to me

[01:24:20] Yeah it wasn't a wing it was fuselage but yes don't do that i like your tip by the way about putting the the actual small piece of covering on the covering iron because i've never done that

[01:24:30] Before yeah it actually works very nicely yeah did you mess up you're about to lose my microphone

[01:24:35] Well let's go it's okay i'll just hold it we can fix it no so if you've started if you started

[01:24:44] With a brand big boom by the way that's because tommy's microphone falls if you've started with

[01:24:48] A brand new roll chances are there are instructions on the roll i know hanger 9 includes them and so does monaco or top flight the value hobby doesn't seem to yeah i agree so if you can find those instructions online which you can they're actually really good and they apply to pretty much the same process applies to pretty much all iron-on type covering but just like tweaks yeah just like dave said start small like start with maybe an elevator first thing i ever covered with a stabilizer yeah or a control surface or something like that start small and before we get into the

[01:25:21] Tools just start with the lowest amount of heat and then work your way up don't go up and work your

[01:25:27] Way down as you just you can always turn the heat up if it's not sticking exactly so and and and a

[01:25:32] Covering material that's trying to shrink on you while you're trying to figure out how to iron it down is not going to be your friend so start with a lower heat just enough to get the adhesive liquefied so that it matt sticks to the airframe but you're going to need an iron

[01:25:44] Right preferably what do you mean by iron preferably not a clothes iron okay i was gonna say i my first

[01:25:51] Three airplanes were covered with my grandmother's 1950s electric iron that weighed about 50 pounds

[01:25:57] There's the bang do you want to put it up yeah can you pause it i can't pause it but we can talk as you do it just turn your mind here i'll let me you're now muted so you can fix that while dave talks about his first covering job with an iron a literal iron iron so is this one of the i mean like when you say 50s i'm thinking of the the old style that really doesn't have a thermostat on it it had like

[01:26:23] A three position switch low medium high situation it was a cast iron shoe the thing weighed at least 10 pounds that's amazing and that's my first three airplanes were covered with my grandmother's

[01:26:34] Clothes iron that's funny so i i don't know if you guys have tried yet i haven't bought but i've thought about getting one of the iron like the edge banding irons on amazon oh now my mic's coming back to attack me that's because tommy's messing with it's trying to get set up i don't think i have a pause button on here guys i'm sorry but anyway so i've thought about buying one of those except the last time i looked they were like 65 bucks they've gone up quite a bit in price they used to be a lot cheaper but i'm curious to see how one of those would work because it has a

[01:27:10] Digital readout whereas like the ones we have are all analog are you back you good turn you back

[01:27:17] Up here you go and i'm back way to go hopefully it doesn't fall off again for now yeah we'll have

[01:27:21] To fix that for next time yeah but anyway like i said i i thought about buying one of those edge banding irons but they look very similar to the 21st century iron it's the same style the same size

[01:27:32] And it has the same microprocessor controlled temperature thing i actually used my cover right

[01:27:37] Iron to put on the edge banding in my trailer when i redid all the trim in the trailer right

[01:27:42] That's a good idea yeah same thing i guess so yeah it worked great if we ever buy one we'll talk about

[01:27:47] I had to crank it up a little bit more like monocoat but it worked great yeah because see i know we've

[01:27:51] Talked about and we'll rehash really quick before we go into it so we got the cover right irons yes and then we also have the hanger nine old style iron my problem with that was the fluctuation in temperature yes they're actually because it's it's not microprocessor controlled i don't know exactly how it works i'm not into that yeah but there was like a yeah there was like a good what was it like 40 degree difference between when it turned on yeah to where it turned off and got to

[01:28:18] Its highest heat setting but they will it does settle like i noticed with mine i have the hanger nine one also and so i usually leave it i never turn it completely off with the dial i just usually leave it on and just unplug it when i'm done so when i first plug it in you can hear it creaking and popping as it as it gets up to temperature and then once it stops creaking and popping i let it sit a few minutes before i actually start iron and then i do the thigh test or whatever or i'll use the thermometer thing that you're gonna give me thank you i made it up so i remember but mine

[01:28:53] At least i haven't checked it now but i mean working with it it seems to maintain that temperature as long as i'm working with it because you i mean realize that as soon as you start using it your material is pulling heat away from that iron so now the iron has to try to heat up and stuff to keep up right so i've noticed with my hanger nine iron i'll set it over off to the side while i work with something else i'll hear it creak and pop again as it's heating up or cooling off as a case maybe so mine does fluctuate as i'm as i'm kind of using it but it doesn't it doesn't affect

[01:29:30] How i'm my process i guess is what i'm trying to say it stays within reason it stays yeah it stays within a comfortable reason where i can work with it after it does its initial heat up

[01:29:40] And so we're gonna it's gonna overshoot on its initial oh yeah yeah and mine was when i was testing him was on for several minutes it wasn't just first turn on and thing but i noticed a difference even in covering with it and maybe mine's not as accurate as yours maybe my and it's hard to say

[01:29:57] How they're made maybe there's a adjustment in there or something that's not as

[01:30:01] Accurate i don't know but i did notice a difference to where in some spots you would be a lot hotter and it would be colder in other spots as you're moving around enough to notice like when you were shrinking or something like that to where it wasn't shrinking the exact same

[01:30:15] And and the more you work with it with whatever material you're working with the more you'll become accustomed to all the little quirks and idiosyncrasies of your iron and the material you're using and the tool you're using and all that sort of stuff and all of that unfortunately just comes with experience so that's why you can't read something and do it you just gotta do it it's gotta yeah and that's why we dave and i both suggest starting with something small like a like an elevator half or an aileron or even just a piece of wood or just cover a piece of wood and there's a huge difference right between covering a a sheeted surface and an open structure

[01:30:50] Seat surface right because now you've got the open structure it's quite a bit it's quite a different yeah the technique is quite a bit different like i i don't go about covering a fully sheeted wing with the same process i would use to cover a wing that has open bays in it so what's the difference patience is the big one i mean on a fully sheeted wing i am not afraid to to use the weight of the iron and maybe a little extra effort a little extra oomph on myself to press that material into the wood and really get that adhesive in the wood and i i'll work on a fully sheeted wing

[01:31:26] I will start let's say we're working with a with a one piece wing like the electro streak i covered my upper surface in one piece one complete i didn't do that one is completely covered one piece both sides right and i start in the middle and i iron it down at the low at the no shrink rate right at my heat activation with monocoat i know where roughly where that's at i iron it down and get that adhesive pressed in there and then i can come back with a little extra heat and make it nice and smooth and i don't have to do the four corners and then so i was gonna ask i didn't know if you

[01:32:00] Went from center all the way out yep or if you still nope i started in this on a fully sheeted surface

[01:32:06] I'll start in the center or the middle or the end and work from one end all the way to the other

[01:32:11] I guess i started to tip and work to the other tip yeah i guess without thinking about it that's

[01:32:16] Kind of how i did on the on the lazy b i went from the front and i'm sorry i went from the back because that was more exact on where i needed it to be and then worked my way forward on the wing no oh on the fully sheeted yeah yeah exactly but on an open structure the wing on that on an open

[01:32:31] Structure the way i do it is i'll i'll work in halves let's say on a fully sheeted or on a full wing i'll start at the center of the left hand panel and i'll tack it right you say halves though

[01:32:42] Is that two pieces or still one on a one piece wing but you only iron on half at half at a time okay but i guess what i'm saying one half of your full sheet of material right but it's a full sheet of material on top you don't actually cut it in the middle no i don't want no no okay that's

[01:32:58] What i wanted to make earlier so i'll start in the center and tack it and then i'll don't pull it a lot right i don't want to stretch it but i'll i'll pull it kind of taut and then i'll tack it at the wing tip and then i'll pull the other end and i'll tack it at the at the root right and then i'll do the same process starting in the center and i'll tack it at the leading edge i'll kind of pull it taut and tack it at the leading edge and then i'll do the same thing 180 degrees tack it at the trailing edge and i just keep doing that process until I've almost got it tacked all the way around the perimeter.

[01:33:32] And then I'll go around the perimeter and iron everything down. And then I'll come back and I'll take heat and shrink it a little bit if it needs it. And then I'll come back and press the material into the ribbed surfaces, edges.

[01:33:45] So when you say you start on the outside, do you actually start at the actual front, the leading edge and trailing edge?

[01:33:51] I start in the center.

[01:33:52] Okay, but as you're going around, I'm sorry. Do you, because I've done it both ways.

[01:33:57] I go, I go center, outdoor in.

[01:34:00] When you get to the edges and you're talking about tacking it down, do you tack that down half inch in, quarter inch in, or do you actually wrap it around?

[01:34:08] I roll it around. I roll it around and do it right on the leading edge. And then cut my excess one X-Acto knife thick, which I guess gives me about a quarter inch.

[01:34:18] That's the hardest part I always have with is trying to get that line cut.

[01:34:21] So you take and lay the knife on the counter or your surface and slide the knife along. You don't hold the knife and cut because you'll get a nice jiggy, jiggy line. That's what all mine look like. So you take, you pull up your overflap, you puncture it with the knife and slide that knife along the surface. It's got to be sharp though.

[01:34:41] I mean, it's got to be a brand new blade. Monocoat and Ultracode both. They will dull a blade like that. Not as bad as coverall. Not as bad as coverall, but yeah, it goes dull pretty quickly. But what I do for, if I want a nice straight line seam, I take a roll of masking tape and I take a line of tape and I put the tape along, let's say the leading edge. And then I iron my covering over the top of the tape.

[01:35:02] And you can see that edge through the covering because of the different thickness. And then I just take the tip of my X-Acto and just go right along that edge.

[01:35:09] You're not afraid to cut too deep into the balsa? Nope.

[01:35:12] Like I said, I've been doing it a long time. And you're cutting into the tape, really. Or along the edge of the tape, not into the tape.

[01:35:18] It's a technique that you just developed.

[01:35:20] Yeah.

[01:35:20] Interesting.

[01:35:21] There's lots of different ways to do it, but that's, yeah, Dave's way. I've done it that way. And a lot of times I just use my fingers as the gauge. So I'll flip the leading edge over and I'll hold the knife from underside and I'll hold the first edge of the piece and then I'll just slide that along the leading edge and I usually get a nice straight cut that way.

[01:35:40] That's what I've got to practice on because my cuts are jagged. It looks like a saw.

[01:35:44] The way I get jaggy, however, is on an open structure wing where the knife falls into the bay. Yes. Yeah. It happens.

[01:35:52] But anyway, yeah. And so the tools, you're going to need an iron to get back to that. Yeah. Preferably a hobby iron, but… Hobby grade. As Dave said, he can… It's doable. It's doable with your mom or wife's iron. You're not going to get into tight corners that way, but you can cover a wing for sure that way or a flat-sided fuselage like a stick. So you're going to need an iron. You're going to need an X-Acto knife with some really sharp blades.

[01:36:15] Plenty of blades.

[01:36:16] And you're going to need a lot of them. So I would recommend getting on Amazon and buying the 100-pack number 11 blade bulk pack. And I think they're up to like 20 bucks. Yeah, they're getting pricey.

[01:36:26] Some people prefer the single-edge razor blades. I've never…

[01:36:28] Yeah. It never worked for me. I've never used them, but yeah, some guys do like those. And the nice thing about those is they make that cool. I don't know if you've ever seen the hand-crank sharpener where you can sharpen the single-edge blades. I have not seen that. That's kind of handy, so you can reuse them, but whatever.

[01:36:42] They're cheap enough.

[01:36:42] Oh, I actually know what you're talking about now. Yeah. I saw a video on YouTube the other day of that. Yeah.

[01:36:47] Then you're going to need a heat gun.

[01:36:50] Yeah. And not a hair dryer. Hair dryer doesn't get near hot enough.

[01:36:53] Hair dryer does nothing.

[01:36:55] What I have… Really? I have an old top… It's actually a top flight heat gun, but I also have a Wagner paint stripper gun.

[01:37:03] I was going to say, my top flight bit the dust after 20-some-odd years. Yeah, mine's still going. The motor burned up in it.

[01:37:10] Tommy actually gave me mine. I don't remember where it came from. I had an extra one, yeah.

[01:37:14] So I have a really nice digital Wagner.

[01:37:16] Yeah.

[01:37:17] Oh, it'll go from shrinking stuff to catching stuff on fire.

[01:37:20] Yeah, mine too. I use mine on low, my Wagner one, because if I put it on high, yeah, it'll melt through covering. Oh, I've turned wood black. Wow.

[01:37:29] With smoke.

[01:37:31] I don't think mine gets quite that hot,

[01:37:33] But mine's not the digital. I forget how high mine goes up, but it's something stupid.

[01:37:38] Also, I would recommend… They're marketed as of gloves. I don't know if you've seen these things, but it's basically a big, thick mitt.

[01:37:49] So if you're going to be working close to your hand,

[01:37:51] I would recommend having one of these things, especially if I've got burns on my hand. I could probably show you right now because I just covered my electrostreak.

[01:38:00] But using that for when you're using the iron?

[01:38:03] Yeah, yeah. So you don't iron the iron.

[01:38:05] Really?

[01:38:06] Not on the iron, just on your free hand that you're using, and then that way you don't…

[01:38:09] I've never used one when I was ironing. I've used it when I was shrinking with… The heat gun? The heat gun.

[01:38:16] Yeah, I've used it with the iron too. And you can get them with nubbies that gives you a grip too sometimes. You don't have to grip the airframe so tightly sometimes, especially like on our electrostreaks. They're pretty thin in places. So yeah, having those little extra grips kind of helps too. But yeah, an iron, a heat gun, lots and lots and lots of sharp number 11 blades, and patience. I mean, that's really, really what it's about. Patience and just develop your technique.

[01:38:42] And I personally don't try to be too neat when I'm doing it. I just cut my pieces off and throw them on the floor and clean them up later. Because if you try to pick them up all the time and throw them in the trash, you spend all day cleaning. Just throw them on the floor, get it over with.

[01:38:54] And that's another thing about the technique is don't be too, too concerned about sags or wrinkles or anything like that. Don't be too concerned with that when you're doing the first initial tack down because you'll drive yourself crazy trying to pull all the wrinkles out as you're tacking.

[01:39:11] You don't want giant bellowing buckles.

[01:39:13] Obviously, you don't want the covering overlapping itself and then ironing the cover to itself. That's not good. But wrinkles and things like that, you can come back and take those out after you have everything tacked down and ironed down. Then you can come back with the heat and take those wrinkles out. So don't waste a lot of time. Don't be hard on it, too. Yeah, don't waste a lot of time trying to pull. Get it close, but not perfect. Exactly.

[01:39:33] Because when you come back with the heat, that's when you're going to make it really pretty.

[01:39:37] Yeah, if you've never done it before, that first time of this looks like crap to oh, I just shrunk it, it looks amazing, is a good feeling.

[01:39:45] But that first time you burn a hole in it is not. It's very frustrating, yeah. I've never done that yet. I've done it. Really? Every airplane. Except for the electric streak. I did not burn a hole in that one. I don't know how I managed that.

[01:39:55] It's been a while since I've done it, but I've covered a lot of airplanes recently. But yeah, those are the basic tools you need. And then if you can find the other handy tools that like a top flight used to make, a smart stripe, which was a thing you would roll your covering onto and you could roll it and it had a blade on it. You could put and make nice pinstripes with it.

[01:40:15] Yeah, I got a vinyl cutter I did with that.

[01:40:16] Yeah. Yeah, me too.

[01:40:18] Something that I think is hard to find that I find indispensable for myself is it's an old top flight trim iron. Oh, yeah. Which I have lost the concave shoe. I just have the flat shoe. Yeah. But what? Hinger 9, I think, makes one, don't they?

[01:40:31] I think they still do, right? A trim seal tool, I think, is what they're actually labeled as. Yeah. But yeah, that's also a handy tool. And something else I just thought of, a really long, preferably a heavy metal straight edge to make your nice long cuts. Like if you're cutting off, if you're going to make your own pinstripes or to cut off big chunks of material, yeah, a nice long straight edge that's heavy, like a good steel one like I have.

[01:40:54] And a piece of foam is a backer to cut on. Yeah. That's what I use.

[01:40:57] Yeah, don't cut on your wife's countertop.

[01:40:59] The big two foot by four foot piece of foam is very handy. Yeah.

[01:41:03] So that's really it. That's all you need to get going and then develop your technique, take your time, and don't beat yourself up.

[01:41:11] Every single one of them gets better looking. Exactly right. Yep.

[01:41:14] Your goal should be, for your first few, make it smooth enough to fly. Serviceable, but not gorgeous.

[01:41:21] Yeah. Yeah. It's a learning experience.

[01:41:22] Gorgeous will come with practice. And some people, have a knack for it right off the bat. Unfortunately, I didn't. I hate it. I hate covering. I actually really enjoy it. covering up or coming up with the color scheme and then getting the, the nice seams and trying to get, trim on top of Monaco without getting bubbles. that's another little challenge I enjoy.

[01:41:44] There's a chemical method for that. I've never used the chemical method for the overlap. I've always just…

[01:41:49] They say ammonia will activate the adhesive and also give you enough time to squeegee stuff out. I've had varying degrees of success with that. Yeah.

[01:41:59] I just cover. Just iron it on. Deal with the occasional blister. Yeah.

[01:42:04] What was the… I don't remember what it was called. The…

[01:42:10] Never mind. I don't know. The trim solvent.

[01:42:12] Yeah, that's it. Trim solvent.

[01:42:13] Yeah, we remember using that down here.

[01:42:15] I still have about a quarter of a jar of that and then I'm using that like it's gold.

[01:42:22] Well, you can't get it anymore.

[01:42:23] You can't get it anymore.

[01:42:23] Yeah. And that's what I use to take off the marks.

[01:42:27] Yep.

[01:42:27] When I… And I will be very sad on my…

[01:42:29] I don't use it for that now. I use acetone for that now because acetone you can still buy.

[01:42:33] Yeah.

[01:42:33] I only use that trim solvent stuff if I got to remove the goo because it does a good job with that.

[01:42:39] And acetone actually does a pretty good job of that.

[01:42:41] Yeah. I've discovered though with acetone sometimes you have to be careful because if you rub too much you can actually start rubbing the color off. And I can't remember which one it was. I think it was Ultra Coat that I did that to.

[01:42:50] I've never had any problem with that. The only problem I've ever had is where I didn't have a tight seam and it got under the seam and then pushed the color out. But as long as it's tightly sealed it's been no issues. Okay. But that's it. That's it. That's the basics. That'll get you going. Good enough to start. Yep.

[01:43:08] Anything else? It's late. We've been going for a while. Yeah, we have. This is one of our longest episodes.

[01:43:13] So we're going to trade transmitters for a week then?

[01:43:16] I forgot about that. We'll see. All right.

[01:43:19] That's all I got.

[01:43:20] I use mine almost daily. That's awesome. I should probably do that. Well, the simulator more than anything at this point. I need to get a simulator. How many flights are you at, by the way? Not as nearly as many as you. I'm not that many yet. I'm still the same five I had New Year's Day. Oh. I didn't know what you were at after you had your flights the other day.

[01:43:39] So I have four from that day and then whatever I had New Year's, which I think was like six. So maybe I'm at ten.

[01:43:47] Okay.

[01:43:48] Maybe.

[01:43:50] That's fine.

[01:43:50] I know you're like in the 70s by now.

[01:43:52] No. No. I'm just over 50.

[01:43:55] So not many. Not many.

[01:43:57] Five. Fifty.

[01:43:58] Yeah. Ten times. But yeah, who's counting? Order of magnitude more.

[01:44:02] All right. Anything else? We're good.

[01:44:03] Nope. That's it.

[01:44:05] Everybody, thanks for listening. Until next time, I'm Ron. I'm Tom. And I'm Dave. Good night. Good night, guys. Night. Forgot to turn that up.

[01:44:13] For topic suggestions, to ask questions, or to give any feedback, connect with us at rcplanelab.com or email us direct at either ron at rcplanelab.com or tom at rcplanelab.com. You can also text us or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846. Please subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, may your landings be gentle. We'll be right back.