My First Scratch build

[Vettster]

100% success! I will for sure be using the free form sculpting dough again in the near future. It has cured as hard as a rock but is sandable. Couldn't be happier with the mold.

[Vettster]

The left stab is good to go!

I ran out of tooling coat, hence the different color in the center

[Vettster]

I got a little experiment going on with the dough, for what it's worth. From left to right, the left is control, the next is smooth peanut butter, then mayo and then a very thin mix. We'll see what happens when checking the "shear strength" It takes very little water to thin the dough. My hope is that I will be able to thin it to a peanut butter consistency so that it would be even easier to apply.

Picture of Right Horizontal Stab before locking coat of 6oz. I sprinkled talcum powder which made it easier to roll flat.

[Vettster]

K..after 10hrs.. the Control is rock hard.
Peanut butter....very firm but just gives in to a firm press.
Mayo..is like hard rubber
Very thin is like foam rubber.
I'm going to wait the full 24hr before trying break them.

Finished one side of the right stab. Had no tooling coat on hand, so I covered it with just resin and hit it with the heat gun. You can watch all the air bubbles pop. 3hrs later it was business as usual.

[Vettster]

So back to the results of the Dough.

After a 24 hr cure, I removed the dough samples. All three that had water added to them broke in half with just finger pressure.
The Control was VERY difficult to snap in halve and I was only able to do it with 2 piliers and even then it put up a fight.
So on its own its very trustworthy. But as the guy in the supply store said.. don't thin it with water.

Next time I got a batch made up.. Im going to try and thin it with Resin. For sure that will make it more like peanut butter but not affect the rigidity of the dough since the dough is actually epoxy in itself.

[Vettster]

Welp... The black paint didn't come out that great. Not the paints fault. It was the painter. I waited till the paint was tacky and then covered it with 3 layers of part all PVA. This was the mistake. Since the paint is reactive to the air and needs it in order to cure... it never really did cure. Once I started to wash off the PVA I realized that the black paint was only about 90% cured I cleaned off all the PVA and then stuck the part in hot box to finish curing the paint. It started to crinkle. The mold is not a right-off.. but it sure going to need some serious sanding to bring it back up to snuff.
Had I waited till the paint was fully cured (24hrs) before coving with PVA all would have been good.

So today Im moving ahead with the final mold Mind you its a doozy. Multi faceted and complicated. For this mold Im not going to risk any new experiments with the Black paint. I'm just going to pick up a quart of tooling coat and carry on as in the past.

[Myzee]

WOW, been away to long. Awesome work man!

[Vettster]

Hey Myles.. welcome back! and thanks

Moving onto the PVA and then tooling coat later

[Vettster]

Well the repair to the Stab came out pretty good. Got it down to 3800 grit wet. Good enough

Tooling coat is on.. though I wish I had added more MEK cause its taking its time to cure.

[Vettster]

Got the cowl molds done! Must resist temptation to remove the molds till the others are finished lol.

Front hatch location(thanks Colin ) I almost placed it to far back not allowing access to the turbine, but Colin pointed out my error. I must of had too many beers that day lol

All my wood has shown up.. a full sheet of aircraft grade ply for the formers. These I will stack cut for 5 kits at a time by myself. My last experience with hiring someone to laser cut some simple parts took 6 WEEKS!! and they were wrong
If you want it done right...