Freewing 80mm A-10 Modifications

[RCjetdude]

Looks fantastic Pat. Bring 'em on.... I am a glutton for punishment... :Silly:I would love to try yours and am happy paying you for a set. I have only ever used the decal papers from Micro Mark for inkjet printers. The white stick great but the clear I am still trying to find my grove on them. :Confused: Let me know when you are ready to go and I will send you the $$.

[crxmanpat]

OK, I think they came out pretty good! Got a few more things I want to do, especially to my AN/ALQ131. I trimmed off all the mold flashing, and then had to repaint. I wanted to repaint it anyway because I wanted it a light shade of gray to give it a little contrast as everything else is the same color as the plane. I also want to add some panel and rivet detail as well, but that will be done by hand. No decals for those.

I just need to get a quick application guide done, and these should be ready to start shipping out. But I won't be able to get back to it until late tomorrow afternoon.

I will also provide the raw file for anyone who wants to print them themselves.

Word of caution. If you didn't like putting on the decals from the kit, you're not going to like doing these! There are 58 individual decals, and most of them are TINY!

[crxmanpat]

Will do. All glued in and painted up.

[RCjetdude]

Using that F5 grate is a good idea Pat. I had one until I cleaned out my basement and I may fave gotten rid of it. I will have to double check. Let us know if you think it helps.

[crxmanpat]

So after my flights yesterday I noticed my lipos were extremely warm (like has been posted by a few pilots already), and I decided to mod the air cooling ducts a bit. I'm using the cheater grate from a Freewing F-5 for the exit air, and I cut some spoons to put over the forward NACA ducts to help draw air through.

Still need to glue everything in place, and touch up with paint, but I hope this helps get more cooling air over the batteries. Of course, it was 103° when I flew yesterday, so that might have contributed.

[RCjetdude]

Thanks. It's not really that difficult to do. Hopefully I will have my custom graphics from Callie soon and I can get this finished.

I also blackened around the gun.

[e4dragongunner]

Good Lord.... well done. really really spectacular work sir!

[RCjetdude]

Rcjetdude
did you us a wash on the panel lines they look real good
john

Yes, just a wash of black and burnt number acrylic paints that I watered down. I brushed it on the panel lines and rivets then wiped it off in a backwards direction with a dry paper towel that I had folded several times to make it more rigid. I kept using a dry part of the towel. Tonight I applied some in a more vertical manner on the fuse and vertical fins.

[petefoss]

I know I saw a picture on one of the 4 squawk and rcgroups of a typical elevator trim position but I'll be switched if I can find it! HELP!

[Jpahemi1]

Rcjetdude
did you us a wash on the panel lines they look real good
john

[RCjetdude]

If there is any shine to them I just give then a matte clear coat and they are good to go.

[downwindleg]

By the way, your plane looks awesome in general. I love the way your markings look with that color scheme. I've been toying with the idea of dry transfers instead of the usual vinyl.......far less shiny and no clear around the edges on the nomenclature. Wonder if Callie would be interested in producing dry transfers for these planes. The cost was always the hurdle in the past but nowadays it might be worth investigating. Brad

[RCjetdude]

Nice rivet work. Did you use Alpha's technique or something else? I tried his technique on a spare cockpit I got for mods and found that it is really easy to push to hard and actually puncture the skin of the plane ......DOH ! A very fine line between a depression and a puncture for sure. Brad

I just used the tip of a blunt pencil. Most did not go through but some did. No big deal.

[Aros]

That was my thinking too Brad...

[downwindleg]

Nice rivet work. Did you use Alpha's technique or something else? I tried his technique on a spare cockpit I got for mods and found that it is really easy to push to hard and actually puncture the skin of the plane ......DOH ! A very fine line between a depression and a puncture for sure. Brad

[RCjetdude]

Hey Brad, I will get to that tomorrow. Tonight I am trying to do some subtle rivet detail and weathering. I still have to weather the bottom and after I re-do some of the decals on the nose (Callie is making them based on my artwork) I will finish weathering the nose.

[downwindleg]

Hey Steve, when is the next installment on the canopy raising system? Looking forward to your next piece of wizardry as well as input from my previous questions on the same. Mine is supposed to arrive today, very exciting! I also ordered an extra canopy and canopy hatch so I could play with that while still flying the stock bird. Brad

[vduniec]

Looking good. Did you mask between the colors?

Thanks. I used clear plastic sheets as patterns, raised off the surface with rolled up pieces of Blu-tac. I hand painted the light green then airbrushed the other two colors on.

[RCjetdude]

Starting to look Lizard-like!

Looking good. Did you mask between the colors?

[vduniec]

Starting to look Lizard-like!