Russian fighter project

[BlackSheep214]

Hey…. Ya need to clean up your bench! Too much Controlled Chaos.

[Gary Brantley]

Hey…. Ya need to clean up your bench! Too much Controlled Chaos.

Chaos is about right. And you are right too, Tom. I ain't hitting another lick in there until I get things tidied up!
I think I'll just head out to the farm this afternoon instead!

[speedgraflex]

I really sincerely appreciate that you show your process, Gary. That takes some guts, truly. I know I have to overcome my own tendency to show the result rather than the ride it took to get there!

[Gary Brantley]

I really sincerely appreciate that you show your process, Gary. That takes some guts, truly. I know I have to overcome my own tendency to show the result rather than the ride it took to get there!

Thanks, Bruce. I don't know about the guts; it will never be a contest winner or showstopper. It'll hopefully get photographed to good effect and then will reside in the display where few will ever see it. Heck, I'm still just building "four-footers", Bruce! Thank you for your vote(s) of confidence! They help immensely!!

I've worked on the dome on that lower joint with some Mr. Surfacer 500 and helped that a lot. As for the rest of that joint, well, it started off looking like a bear's *ss sewed up with a grapevine and now it looks a lot better. Meh, I can live with it, I imagine.

On wing root news, well, my Apoxie Sculpt came in early, and I gave it a shot this morning. Although simple, there's a learning curve. It worked moderately well, I think. I may have applied too much as it was hard to rub away the excess with dampened cotton buds. The clay was dryer than I expected too. I believe there's a thinner for it and that might really help. But I have a brand-new jar of Mr. Surfacer 500 on the way to replace my gooey stuff and I'll use that for any final gap filling.

Hey, real paintwork may be coming soon!

[jeaton01]

Gary, do you have epoxy clay or epoxy sculpt? Water is a thinner for either, I just wet my finger and run it down the seam. After enough times the surface will liquefy. I also work it like clay and remove the extra with a scalpel. I prefer epoxysculpt as it is finer grained and cures to a harder surface.

[Gary Brantley]

John, the product that I bought is Epoxie Sculpt modeling compound. After kneading the two parts together, can that result than be thinned with water? I did use wet cotton buds primarily to rub away the excess. I had to resort to "scraping" away a few larger globs with a small screwdriver. The two components were mixed together for a minute or so, I believe, but it seemed quite dry and almost crumbly when I finished. Did I not knead it enough maybe? Thank you sincerely for the good info!

[speedgraflex]

Yeah, Gary I use Milliput Superfine White Epoxy putty which is another two part putty that will dilute down with water. What I do is knead the putty for a long time, then wash my hands, and apply with a toothpick or old blade to the surface, then I will wet very fine sandpaper strips with water and used the granular side first then the smooth paper second to tame the surface. I prefer using sandpaper because it removes and conforms the material to the actual shape better than a finger tip. See my Sopwith Camel's cowling for how that works. Cheers.

[Gary Brantley]

Thanks for the additional information, Bruce. How long after applying the Milliput do you wait before using the wet sandpaper?

[speedgraflex]

I don’t wait. Work wet. Milliput Superfine takes 7 minutes to knead together which is a real pain in the fingers then I’ll wash up and get to work. I keep at least one container of clean water nearby to dunk the part into as well. There are issues just with epoxy putty I believe so take a layered approach. You have about twenty minutes until the putty begins to become unworkable. That’s when I dunk in water and use the back side of the sandpaper nobody uses to flatten and smooth the area and clean up the surface surrounding the fill. Finally at half an hour I will gently and again with clean hands and wet strip of sandpaper make a final smoothing before setting aside to dry. For sandpaper I use 600 to 1000 grit pieces that are already clogged. I keep these strips in a plastic baggie specifically to use as tools to shape putty. Once I have used them for this task I toss em in the bin. I used to try to wash them to reuse but that didn’t really work.

[Gary Brantley]

Thank you, Bruce! After 20 minutes, when the putty begins to be unworkable, when you dunk the part in the water, do you leave it in water for working it? Or, is it then removed and worked wet outside the water container? I would need to immerse most of the wing in order to dunk the wingroot; could more water just be applied onto the wing and not immerse it in water? I know these must seem like really dumb questions and the answers are probably intuitive once the process is under way. Even at the half-hour mark, the putty is still sandable/shapeable?