Monokote vs Paint by weight

[Paul Taylor]

So I think I built a chunky monkey. I have a Vector that goes off my scale at about 54 oz. So I know I built one.
I will need a few more flights on the fat hog before I know for sure. I had to add about 5oz to the nose to get it to balance on the CG.

I figured I put on too much paint.

I'm thinking about stripping off 99.9% of the paint and try again or pulling paint and paper off and wrap in monokote.

Anyone tried this before?

Looking for advice on what path to take.

Thanks
Paul

[fred cesquim]

So I think I built a chunky monkey. I have a Vector that goes off my scale at about 54 oz. So I know I built one.
I will need a few more flights on the fat hog before I know for sure. I had to add about 5oz to the nose to get it to balance on the CG.

I figured I put on too much paint.

I'm thinking about stripping off 99.9% of the paint and try again or pulling paint and paper off and wrap in monokote.

Anyone tried this before?

Looking for advice on what path to take.

Thanks
Paul

Hello Paul
one thing i´ve learned from heavy finished planes: build another, trying to fix usually leads to poor finish and heavy finish
and the monkote won´t glue nicely on already painted(and stripped off) surfaces.
covering needs to liberate gas and the sealed surface will prevent that.
maybe a new painting would be light but i think a new plane takes about the same time to be built and the final finish/weight result would be better.
all of my finishes are monokoted wings/stabs and fuse painted, trim painted on wings/stabs over monokote  and a final clear coat to seal everything.
lightest finish i achieved
regards
Fred

[Mike Griffin]

Fred are you spraying clear over the Monokote?

Mike

[EddyR]

My ARf Vector modified into a Tempest weighted 54 ounces and powered by a ST/46 was one of my all time best flying planes. I used the ARF body and it was worn out so I have rebuilt it with a new body. I was using 61' of .o18 lines at that time. It now looks very different but it is the same plane.
 Maybe your tale was heavy before it was covered. I did not use the ARF Vector tail as the Tempest is different shaped.
Ed

[George Truett]

One classic mistake on painted finishes is putting way too much paint on the tail and creating a tail heavy aircraft as it sounds like you have.  Any chance of just refinishing or replacing an overweight stab and getting that 5 ounces out of the nose?

[Skip Chernoff]

My Thunderbird was originally covered in silk spun Coverite then finished with about six coats of clear dope thinned 50/50. The plane weighed 54oz. I stripped of the Coverite and Monkoted the plane. It was 6 oz lighter with Monokote.....and flew waaay better.

[Chris Brainard]

I bought an ARF Pathfinder which had the covering already stripped off. I didn't like how flexible the fuse was and strengthened it ( i.e. - added a bunch of weight in the process). Net result was a tail heavy plane weighing 58 oz.. I cut the vertical tail, stab and elevator off before it's first flight and built new ones from contest grade wood, reducing the weight of the original pieces by 2.1 oz.. Once rebalanced and excess weight removed from nose, model weighed 50 oz. and is one of my best flying airplanes.
Chris

[fred cesquim]

Fred are you spraying clear over the Monokote?

Mike

Hello MIke! nice to see you here!yes, on this plane the white base on wing and stab is monokote, all the trim colors are auto lacquer and 2 part clear coat over the whole plane (to seal the ink lines). monokote was sanded with 800 grit wet sandpaper

[Mike Griffin]

Hello MIke! nice to see you here!yes, on this plane the white base on wing and stab is monokote, all the trim colors are auto lacquer and 2 part clear coat over the whole plane (to seal the ink lines). monokote was sanded with 800 grit wet sandpaper

Thank you Fred.

Mike

[Dennis Adamisin]

Hi Paul
While the overall weight is bad I think the bigger problem is that you had to add all that nose weight.  Essentially you are flying a barbell: tough to start a turn, tough to stop a turn.  while that porkiness MIGHT help keep it steady, when it gets jostled its gonna just keep wallowing around until it runs out of energy. You are going to be fighting that (actually you will mostly be a spectator to it) even if you have enough power.  It needs to be stripped down.  If you think the stab/elevator structure is heavy maybe remove/replace it too.  Then apply a lighter finish.  The beauty of 'kote finishes is that you can predict exactly how much weight they will add and plan for it.

Question is, whether you would be better off just starting from scratch?  If you think the airplane is straight and salvageable then stripping it down might be a good idea. Folks using "Dad's Stripper" report they can quickly even remove the paper from sheeted areas, getting down nearly to bare balsa which you can 'kote over pretty easily.  Randy Ryan did a real nice job of this on his Gladiator a few years ago.  I think Randy Powell redid his Cobra using a similar method. 

On the other hand you can frame up a new Vector (or similar) pretty darned fast. 'Kote the wing & tail and paint the fuselage for a reasonable finish weight.  Use the heavy one for bench presses during your workout...

[Paul Taylor]

Thanks for all the input.

I don't build fast and the plane is straight so there is a good chance it will get stripped.
I will give it a few more test flights and see if it is still doing weird stuff and try and get an exact weight.

Thanks again I will report back in a week or so.

[Will Davis]

Paul,

I had a model with a rather short front end and a longer than normal tail moment , it came out tail heavy and required  4 ounces of nose weight to balance .

Fix was simple , strip the tail,  moved the tail forward slightly, back to original specs .  ,,, . made built up elevators, monocoat the tail to match..

Had planned to refinish wing, but never did, it flew too good and required no nose weight

Kinda like the see saw with the fat kid on the other end, something has to give to make it balance .

6 ounces lighter when trimmed out .

[Avaiojet]

Paul,

I had a model with a rather short front end and a longer than normal tail moment , it came out tail heavy and required  4 ounces of nose weight to balance .

Fix was simple , strip the tail,  moved the tail forward slightly, back to original specs .  ,,, . made built up elevators, monocoat the tail to match..

Had planned to refinish wing, but never did, it flew too good and required no nose weight

Kinda like the see saw with the fat kid on the other end, something has to give to make it balance .

6 ounces lighter when trimmed out .

Will,

Could you have just removed the 4 ounces of nose weight, then removed the engine to move it forward until the model balanced and replaced it at that point.

Sure, some work may have to have been done to the nose, but probably easier than removing and shortening the tail moment.

Did you consider that?

Charles

[Paul Taylor]

Update:
As Dennis said I was just a spectator to a mushy pattern.

Paint and paper will come off when I get time. It's hanging on the wall where it looks good.