Stencils....

There have been several articles recently in a few mags detailing the RoboCraft Plotter. Now I have one of these and to me all the articles have missed the real use for these things in the scale arena.

I use mine to cut stencils for use with the airbrush. I use Adobe Illustrator to create the artwork and then send it to the plotter. the mask material is a rubbery sort of film that cuts with a really crisp edge.

After weeding, which is where you remove the areas where you want the paint, they are ready to be used. I have done stencils for models all over, the last set of Hurricane ones I sent to a modeller in Florida, I concentrate mainly on WWII. Anyway many people think you have to mask the whole area off, well this is not the case if you are fairly proficent with an airbrush and you set the pressures and paint flow right. See the attached pics, which I think explain it all. One of the tricks is the piece of A4 with which I make a sliding picture frame. along the edges I use electrical tape. This can be attached around the stencil and moved to the next one as you spray. Its is a very quick process really and the results are well worth it.

I scoured the web but was unable to find closeups of the various stencils that would have adourned Hoagi's Fury, so have used a bit of peotic license.

Did a bit of airbrushing on the exhausts, not overly happy with it but as its only a rough model to practice with flaps and retracts, shan't worry too much.

Anyway I have to paint my pilot and the spinner and then she is ready for flying

duplicate

Wow! Looking good there Danny. I'll have to have a look at that plotter ad maybe get one. Those stencils really sert the model off.

As for the exhausts I used a Humbrol metallic bronze dry brushing over black to get that worn, corroded look.

Thanks Shaun I will have to give that a go.

The plotter is really useful, conincidentally the Pyramid decals were all cut on Metamark vinyl, the same brand as i use in the plotter I could have made the decals myself but the Pyramid ones were a lot easier, and roundels are a pain as they are three circles exactly overlaid.

Well apart from "Hoagi", the pilot, (must re-read Shauns notes) and the Special on painting a pilot LOL and have a bash.

Thats it video hopefully at the weekend.

oh figures, 1237Watts, 58A, 8 cells A123, 50A ESC ( I know  ) prop is a 15 x10

Throttle set, contact!!!!

Wow that looks great Danny - should go well too if the ESC doesnt turn to toast

Interesting that you "only" got 1237 Watts on that big prop.... I presume your motor is lower Kv than mine ?

I was getting around 1Kw on a tiddly little 12 x 6 with 8s A123s. 

Hi Timbo yes a whopping 350KV I would prefer a much - much lower KV but that was all I could find. I wanted to use a 17" prop at least. the smaller motor was turning a 14 x 6.5 so had hoped this would give me a bigger prop. Not sure its worth the extra half pound.

The ESC didn't even get warm after a 20 second bllast at full power, even on a fresh pack so I hope it will keep going. I don't know about you but if they are going to melt its usually straight away. Once takeoff is taken care of the prop will unload considerably..........he hopes......

need to weigh it and check the c of g as it has lost nearly 2.5 inches off the nose

Ah yes...thats quite slow turner there Should be nice.

depends on the ESC of course, I have some which are regularly pushed past there specs, and have been fine.

The only problem I have ever had was with  Tornado stuff ( 2 actually which were pants )  and also another branded one which was 6S lipo capable, but it did NOT like 8s A123s ( fairysnuff I guess )

Yes ditto to the Tornado stuff, two duff wattmeters later

Not as good as yours Shaun, but he is willing to fly the Fury

 He does have that look doesn't he?

 Danny you'd better get him glued in if we are going to fly them both together soon.

Nearly ready to go - chocks away!

Okay well finally this evening Hoagi agreed to take the Fury up for a spin, and what do you know the video camera was present and worked!!!! hooray I can hear you all shouting.

My thanks to Chris who shot the video and then test flew his identical Sea Fury, great job Chris. There is a queue of at least two other Seagul Sea Furys at the club now ready to do makeovers LOL

I will be doing a stencil set for the Fury if anybody is interested just drop me a PM

Anyway thanks again Chris for the video and the titling at the beginning and end, super job.

Sea Fury Test flight 3, new motor, nose 2" shorter, and slightly forward c of G, Eagle tree to follow

Just need some practice flying it slower, and not throw it around like a pylon racer!

Thanks David,

No shortage, It's only about 1100 Watts but as the model still only weighs 9lb 5 ozs (half a pound of paint and decals, exhausts, pilot).

It takes off at half throttle and really does fly well electric, I may double up the A123 into a 8s2p pack, it will certainly take the weigh. As A123 only give 2300 and a 4.5 minute flight is using 1600ma so 5 minutes will be easy, if I go to 4600 (8S2P) I will get ten minutes easily

Danny

Chris has uploaded a higher res version of the video you can find it here:

Sea Fury Flight 4

It is incorrectly labelled in the earlier post it should be flight 4 not three

Looks and sounds great Danny. Interesting takeoff run!

Bags of power there, did you have Dunlop troubles?

Hi Shaun, yes each takeoff includes a surprise and a toy lol I eased off the up just a little too soon and she nearly went over on her nose, a dab of up elevator brought the tail down but then she was off and away, not my usual gentle climb out but was worried by a low sun directly into wind. Thats my excuse anyway

Bags of power, 7000 rpm on a 17 x 10 according to propcalc gives 12lb of thrust, certainly enough. I flew that flight on a 15 x 10 to give a bit more duration. The Eagle tree figures showed I used an average of 12A for a 4min flight so good for 6 minutes at the pace you see in the video or more like 8 minutes flying a little more realistically. I used 1600 mah of my 2300.

Chris flew straight after with his Fury with the same setup although he did use a 17 x 10 and the performance was very similar even down to the capacity used for the flight duration.

All in all a pleasing result, a model that really lends itself to electric, and especially A123 as you do not need to worry about cooling as you would for lipos.

Very nice. I am tempted to build my Sportsman Spit as a leccy model because of your success.

Out of interest, what do you estimate was the total cost of this build?