Builder's
Corner
By Bob McDougall
After building planes for years, one tends to find new, unexpected uses for various items found in non-hobby stores...
I found a cute little paint roller kit that’s about a third the size of a regular paint roller, and comes with two polyfoam and two fuzzy fabric roller covers. It seems to work very nicely for pressing down your favorite iron-on covering as you hit it with the heat gun. The cost is about what you’d pay for a couple of those ‘hot glove’ thingies. It’s called a "Micro Precision Painting System", in the paint dept. at Eagle for about $7.00. After shrinking the covering, Just roll it along right behind the heat gun to bond the covering to the surface.
Need something to run your servo extensions through? Check your favorite hardware store for a plastic ‘shower cortain rod cover’. It’s very thin plastic, rolled into a sleeve with an open, overlapping seam. Works nicely inside large wing panels, can be compressed to a smaller diameter if necessary, and a lot quicker and easier than rolling paper into a long servo extension tube. Also, if you cut off pieces about a half inch long, you can glue them in strategic locations inside the fuselage, and use them as ‘cable clamps’ for those planes with servo extensions going back to the tail instead of pushrods. About $2.00 for a five foot length. You can also compress it, tape it, and wrap sandpaper around it to make a variable-diameter sanding dowel for fillets and inside corners.
This page last updated 07/04/99 16:45