It's painted.

 After seeing how far 4 ounces of dope will go and having 4 ounces for the rest of the plane I ordered 4 more ounces and another pint of thinner from Brodak. Yesterday I started to paint the olive drab and started with the original spray gun from over 20 years ago. It didn't work. I quickly changed to the detail gun I didn't want to use and got the job done. It didn't work well as the paint wasn't thinned enough but the paint flowed out very well and looks good with just one coat. After cleaning up I poured the leftover paint back into the cans and I ended up with a bit more than I started with. I'm guessing 4 ounces of paint on the plane and 4.5 ounces of thinner gave me the extra usable paint left over. Now to apply the stars and bars and I'm waiting for the trim coat sheet and vinyl letters.

The wait begins.

We went to the hobby shop in Fiskdale, MA, Hog Heaven, and I got some parts and had to order some cub yellow trim sheets for the a-36. I found an old bottle of Pactra Aero Gloss paint that was the color I have been looking for for the bottom of the A-36. It was 4 ounces and with thinning should be enough for the bottom. As it turned out 4 ounces just barely did the job. I had to use the Badger air brush for the last touch ups as it has a small paint tank. I had never used it and it's been around for over 20 years. It worked fine with it's own air supply in a can. I checked Amazon and found that replacements are still available. The bottom of the plane has less area than the top. The fuselage sides and top, the fin and rudder make 4 ounces of paint too litrtle for the job. I called Brodak and ordered another 4 ounces of olive drab and a pint of thinner. Maybe by mid week next I'll be able to spray on the olive drab. Then it will be getting the decals and lettering to finish the job. I got the local sign cutter working of the unit insignia but I haven't heard from him in over a week. I'll be seeing him about the other lettering and will check on the insignia then.
  I got the new lines in yesterday and made up a set of .018 dia. by 67 feet long. That is the max. length for that plane with in the rules of 70 feet from handle to the center of the model. And with the heavier more powerful plane and engine I figure .015 dia. lines would be pushing it. They will hold the plane and maybe I'll go the them after I find out how much pull this set up has. A windy day will require the use of the .018's as the pull down wind is a lot more than on a normal wind day.

Christmas Eve flying.

After some sanding and applying Polycrylic on the Strega/A-36 I noticed the winds were wuite low. The temp. was in the high 30's so I grabbed the Guru and headed for the field. There was 4 others flying r/c helicopters but they don't bother me at the circle. After putting the vent tube back on the tank and warming the engine with hot water it backfired on the first flip and spit the prop off. I had to remove the spinner to tighten the prop and replace the spinner. About a third into the flight the engine ran faster than it should have but I didn't get through the pattern before it quit. The vent tube fell off causing fuel to siphon out. I had a piece of tubing and a plug so after fixing that I got a good flight in. That plane flys very well. The handle I'm using on it is one I won at the raffle in October. The ones I'm making are noticably thinner. When I got home I fired up the sander and took a 1/4 inch off the thickness of the handle. I took a half ounce of tip weight out too and put on 2.5 inch wheels as the 2.25 inchers didn't like the rough ground and the gear is a bit too far aft.  I put in a new longer piece of vent tubing, hopefully that will cure the problem.
  I started the proces of gluing the canopy on the Strega/A-36. I got an instrument panel and a pilot figure glued in then brushed on the final color where the canopy is located so when I mask it off for the final painting there won't be any bare wood showing under the canopy. I bought some of the new fast setting J-B Weld and have tested it with good results. I'll use that to go around the entire canopy and really glue it down and form a fillet at the same time.

Carb. change.

I have moved between the Holley and the Edelbrock version of the Carter A.F.B. carbs. all summer and into the winter. The main problem has been the electric choke on the Holley and percieved gas mileage on the AFB. I had the Holley on first and installed the AFB because of the choke. The AFB runs very well but seemed to have poor mileage. I reeinstalled the Holley and put a manual choke conversion on it and the high idle wouldn't drop on command. I trimmed some plastic and improved the situation. The Holley also has a stumble at parking lot speed and a little more gas to get over the stumble is too much speed for a parking lot. I bit the bullet and put the AFB back on the other day and will stick with it. I don't think the mileage is any worse than the Holley. The high idle is connected to the choke so it comes off as the choke opens manually. The AFB has a manual choke to begin with. No stumble either.
  I weighed all the parts of the Strega/A-36 and came up with 58.5 ounces. It's very close to paint and should be real close to my hoped for weight of 59.9 ounces when fully assembled and ready to fly. I didn't factor in the wing tip weight about an ounce there. I thought the plane was all one color but I found today it has a light blue or grey bottom. I have to get some white dope to lighten the light blue I have. A very light grey primer would be about perfect too but I think I already have the lightest grey primer out there. I could apply the bottom color after the olive drab dope for the top then I could use enamel or whatever brand that has what I need.

Back to where I was if I did plan "A".

I had ordered some light silk span from Brodak to apply over the fuzzy covering on the wing. After thinking about it for several hours I decieded to remove the old and put on new covering. I was afraid that the silk span would not adhere to the fuzzy areas well. In my impatience I abandoned the idea to apply the above silk span to the fuselage and brushed on two coats of epoxy. Now that I re covered the wing with poly span I had this light silk sapn doing nothing along with me. I started cutting a piece for the rear of the fuselage and when I finished the fuselage was covered with paper. Which is what I had planned all along. All this could have been averted if Brodak had gotten my order here the same day I called it in. I did mail the landing gear back and got the decals so that order is straightened out.

Once more for old times sake.

The poly span covering I used on the Strega/A-36 wing has to go on smooth side up. It isn't too hard to figure out which side is the smooth side as I got it right on the bottom which I covered first. After a few coats of polycrylic on the entire wing surface I very lightly sanded the wing with 400A paper. The top looked funny after that. I hit those areas with a coat of primer this morning and the fuzz stood up right away. I couldn't sand it off either. I ended up removing the covering from the top of both wing panels and applying new covering. I tested for the smooth side several times before and after sticking it down. I found that running the covering over fine grit sand paper 'across the grain' was the best way to find the smooth side for sure. Testing with the grain was not usefull at all.  I heated the covering to remove the wrinkles and it's drying now. I'll put some coats on the areas I didn't get today later. Mostly the open bays between the ribs.
  The decals from Brodak came in a few minutres ago. I took a chance they would be close to the right size as Brodak is the only one that has the star and bar with a red surround which is on the A-36 I'm copying. The size is perfect. They are for one of Brodaks Hellcat kits.
 The weather is going down the drain with high winds and snow showers today. More snow is in the forecast for next week.

Not quite an auto clave but...

 I called Brodak Mon. afternoon and ordered some light silk span, decals, a pilot figure and some paint. It hadn't arrived by night fall mail delivery so I went with plan 'A'. I figured that i could use finishing epoxy instead of the paper but getting it to cure in these cooler temperatures is a problem. I mixed up a small batch of epoxy and thinned it to brushing consistancy and applied a coat to the cowl and hatch cover and put them on the furnace to cure. The next day the epoxy had cured very nicely. Now how to get the plane on the furnace?  I mixed a batch of epoxy and brushed a coat on the fuselage. The next day it was tacky still even though I had the plane near one of the baseboard heaters in my bed room. That may explain why it stayed tacky. We had electric heat installed in the upstairs rooms when they were remodeled 30 years ago and now they go unused. One of the rooms is about 8 feet square. I turned the heat on to 75 degrees and started to mix a batch of epoxy. I brushed on the second coat and put the plane near the heater. A few hours later I got the idea to hang it from the ceiling and did that and turned the heat up a bit more. 8 hours later the epoxy had cured nice and hard.
  I found the Brodak order on the back porch again and opened it to find wire landing gear instead of decals. The invoice had the correct number so I called and got that straightened out then mailed the gear and invoice back to Brodak. I hung the silk span on the wall.
This morning I mixed up a batch of spackle into a slurry of brushing consistancy and put a coat on the fuselage. When it dries I'll sand it off and do that until the surface is smooth. Then primer and sand.

  I took the detail gun out and used some of the left over paint from the hot rod to get the spray pattern to where I can use it for the plane. The paint has been in a quart can since 1997/98 winter. It's still good.