Ultralight WIG craft

[lizzienewell]

The wing design is starting to come together. I'm using nylon trouser socks as the wing skin. The skin is a pain in the petootee to sew. Since the fabric is so stretchy I can't do it on my sewing machine and must do it all by hand. I have to use lots of pins to keep the fabric from curling and then the pins fall out. On the next build I will pin the fabric to paper to keep everything in place.

On this version I roughed in the wing ends so that I could focus on the skin. In the next version the wing ends will fan closed. It's nice to see this starting to come to a finish.

I do need to work out the hydrofoil landing gear, but that shouldn't be hard.

I tried posting these pictures into the gallery but I haven't figured out the new system yet.

Lizzie

 

[GEEDUBBYA]

Miss Lizzy,

You can use super glue on the panty hose material. Either to hold it in place on the corners while you sew or as a more permanent bonding agent w/o sewing. another option would be to "sandwhich" the material between two pieces of paper, the main body part you are adhering it to and another piece ontop of the material, which might be scales, feathers or just paper of the same color as the part below it. Then you can trim the excess material after the bond sets and the glued joint will be covered with paper ontop and bottom.
I know this appears vague and would really help if I could illustrate it here but, I havent figured out the pics here either yet lol. But, I hope it helps or starts you thinking about easier ways that you may not have considered.


have a good day,

Greg aka GW

 

[dwgannon]

"You can use super glue on the panty hose material."
GW, Just how would you know that???? LOL

Any way Lizzie, you might want to try some fabric adhisive. The wife uses it to hold some of her loose fabric on her tear-away stabilizer when she hoops for doing machine embrodery.

Just a thought.

 

[lizzienewell]

The difficulty is that the stuff needs to stretch and most things put on this will either come off when the fabric stetches or keep it from stetching. Superglue is brittle.

I've considered laminiating the fabric to a latex membrain (I'm not telling you where I'd get the latex but I'd wash off the lubricant) with Barge cement or Shoe Goo. The would make the fabric more windproof but wouldn't help with the attachement problem. I'd have a problem with people identifying or asking about the source of the latex.

Hm shoe goo might be worth a try. And then there is silicon caulk. I don't think I can get around the sewing.

It's good to toss around ideas.

 

[lizzienewell]

Dave,

Good idea. I could get some water soluble sizeing to hold it stable while I sew on the machine. Maybe ordinary laundry starch would work. Then I could wash the sizing out. I tried stablizing the fabric with paper but pulling the paper off the stitching was as tedious as hand sewing.

Hm then I do the final sewing by hand and cover most of that messy stitching with silicon and some cardstock. It will have one seam visible on the leading edge but if it's machine done it will look better. I don't want the fabric to stretch much on the leading edge so the seam works well there.

You guys rock with ideas.

Lizzie

 

[GEEDUBBYA]

LoL Dave,

Hmmmmmm, How did I know that about the panty hose? Well, at one time when I was married, I had about $3,500 worth of plastic model kits, 134 of them total of aircraft, helicopters, and armor. Along with another $1,500 worth of air compressors and air brushes and paint and accessories.
Among my many models were models of the M923A1 BIG FOOT TRUCK, the M548A1 TRACKED CARGO CARRIER and other "covered" vehicles like the M577 FORWARD COMMAND vehicle, all of which had either a "tarp" or camo netting draped over them. Well, Netting and tarps are really hard to make out of plastic, so the models dont come with those.
Being the amazing and highly creative person I am lol, I knew most fabric was too thick to use on the 1:35 scale models and I also knew that fabric "sucks up" paint. So, being resourceful, while drinking my beer and working on a model, I had to take one of the ex wifes knee high hose from the dog who almost always nearly choked to death on them....and looking at the color, a flat sand brown, decided that I would stretch a piece of it over the cargo aea of the "M923 BIG FOOT". After gluing it in place with superglue on two corners I found that I could stretch the fabric so the "ribs" of the cargo area of the trucklooked right, then I glued the rest of it down.
When I found out that I could take some small plastic greenery from wayward christmas decorations and snip them into small "leaves" and insert them into the mesh of the fabric for camo I was happy. But then I found out that this fabric doesnt "suck up" paint either, it takes very little paint to paint this material with an airbrush.....almost so little it aint worth loadin up the airbrush lol. Guaze was another material I found that works for canvas when needed, but it doesnt have that "form fitting" property that allows the ribs of the cargo area to stand out.
So, now you know how I knew lol. One other thing, and I have mentioned it before, bread tie twist wires w/o the paper make great antenna on armor. A drop of white glue or clear fingernail polish dries clear over guages giving the appearance of glass over the guage and red fingernail polish works great for tail lights when you are out of red paint.

have a good evening,

Greg aka GW

ps, sorry to have hijacked this thread miss Lizzy, I return control over to you lol.

 

[Gil]

Lizzie,

I seem to remember that fabric & craft stores carry a sizing for material to be put through an inkjet printer. Also isn't there a pelon type backing that washes out?

-Gil

 

[barry]

wing leading edge

I suppose you could put a deicer strip along the leading edge seam

 

[lizzienewell]

What is a deicer strip?

I need the fabric to stretch because the wing folds and the fabric needs to remain taute no matter the wing position. The problems is at the leading edge the fabric sucks inward. I've solved it by either putting a strip of paper along the leading edge and sewing it at the ends. The wing struts form a parallelogram. They fold by shearing, one side of the parrallelogram dropping back from the other. I've also solved it by sewing non-streching thread along the edge and by possitioning the seam there. The difficulty with a paper support strip is that it can only attach at pivot points so those parts of the strip get weak and tend to collapse.

Are my paper support strips deicer strips? I like getting all the right names for parts.

Lizzie

 

[Maurice]

Lizzie

Let's try spelling that as de-icer and talk about the inflatable black rubber strips along the leading edge of aircraft wings.
Er ... that's rubber as in rubber and not as in .... well ... errr ... in anything else ....
:grin:

Cheers
Maurice

 

[Revell-Fan]

BUMPED for priority reasons - do not bump in old threads.

Revell-Fan