To paint or not to paint

We covered the airplanes with silkspan and dope. Ted Fancher suggested in the construction article not to use colored dope on the wings, but to use only clear dope. The boys do not like the transparent white look. They would prefer to paint the wings.

What would be a good finished weight for a Medic?

>What would be a good finished weight for a Medic?

That is the same area as a Banshee/Twister, so mid-30 ounces to upper 30 should be OK. According to the Rocket Scientist/ Popularizer of FP's for aerobatics, that 25 is less easily tamed than the FP 20. It will try to run away to a greater extent.

Get a couple of spray cans of something fuel proof, like various of Rustoleum's non- metallics, and mist-spray a light pastel coating of some darker color (dark colors cover best, and have fewer pigment solids than lighter colors). Stop after you get a nice pastel tint; it may be a little uneven, but it'll be color without being heavy.

K.

With further experimentation, choking the venturi down will help a lot with this. Use everything stock, including the muffler, and add a Bru-line yellow/beige air filter. This is the fine. The coarse will help, but not enough. Use a 9-4 Tornado (available from Sheldon's) or a 9-4 APC. It will spin a 10-4 or even a 10-3, but I think they run better with less load.

The first Medic weighs somewhere in the upper 20's/low 30s, and it flies exceptionally well at that weight. It's harder to build than the Skyray, but its a significantly better airplane.

I think you may just want to try dressing it up a bit with trim rather than trying to put a full finish in it. Weight saving is really important for non-flapped airplanes. If you just can't stand the bare silkspan, you can do like Alice Cotton-Royer did and put some dye in clear dope, and just dye the airplane. It won't be opaque, but it will be a color. Then cut out colored tissue for decorations and dope that over the top. It's very effective.

I would not recommend a full opaque finish, but if you absoltuely musty, use a metallic-color dope and use as little as you can possibly get away with. Details cover/draw the eye away from thin spots.

I'm sure Ted can elaborate further. With no flaps, the airplane must be light.

Bravo to you for getting a couple of young people interested. I think its great that they care enough that the appearance of the airplane is important to them. I encourage you all to find ways to achieve a level of finish which satisfies you while still recognizing the need to keep the weight down.

I don't know if you were able to read the article on the Doctor/Medic before building your versions. In the article I suggested the use of colored silkspan with clear dope only to get the basic color on the wing. Sounds like we're too late for that so alternatives like Brett suggested are probably in order.

I really like Brett's suggestions about applying several coats of clear tinted with dye rather than using heavy pigmented dope. I'm less sure using colored tissue on top of that for trim decoration will work out, however. I'm afraid the thin dope required to adhere the colored tissue would soften the tinted clear and cause the colors to run together.

I think you'd get better results from cutting trim shapes out of sticky monokote and using that to get decorative colors on top of the tinted clear.

Brett's second suggestion about using a "metallic" based paint if you decide you simply must have a painted color is a very good suggestion as well. The metallic base results in a very rapid level of opacity without lots of coats.

Good luck and let us know how the ships work out.