My fun project - Beginners Ringmaster

[Keith Renecle]

Hi All,

I was told a few years ago that you can print on silkspan, so I decided to have a go at this. I tried a very simple 1/2A plank model, the Beginner's Ringmaster, and although I have a few Babe Bee's, I used electric power. I was not quite sure how to use tissue in a standard inkjet printer, so I figured that it should work if I glue the tissue to the paper around the edges of the paper. In fact, I used 3 of the edges and it worked out great, as you can see from the photo's.

The motor is a Sunnysky X2205 - 1900 Kv, turning an APC 6 x 5.5 E prop. I used a 12A esc and a 2 cell 450 mAh lipo.  The timer is one of my KR Compact timers with the small push-button switch. A loop of Velcro holds the timer on the inside of the nose section and the ESC on the other side. The battery is held with Velcro under the outer wing with a simple balsa surround. I fly it on 10 metres (32.8 ft.) of 10 lb. Spiderwire braid using an old Carl Goldberg handle. It actually flies quite well as you can see from the video link below, although it was a bit twitchy with the handle set to its widest spacing. The next holes down were just a bit to insensitive, so I've new made myself a new 1/2A handle.

[Keith Renecle]

Here are a few more photo's. If anyone wants more details of the nose construction, just let me know.

[Mike Griffin]

I really like that Keith.  I did not know you could print on silkspan or tissue paper.  You said you used lacquer, I wonder if you used dope over it , if it would smear the ink on the tissue.

Mike

[Keith Renecle]

Hi Mike,

Clear lacquer is basically the same as clear dope. We can't get real dope here in Darkest Africa easily, so I just buy clear lacquer from the car spray shops. It has no effect on the print, but I found that water (of all things!), smudges the print. My first try on the tissue had a few small wrinkles in it, and I usually like to spray the tissue with water and smooth it out with water, but it smudged, so I just applied it with the clear lacquer/dope.

[Jim Kraft]

   They make a special spray for ink jet ink, but I have found that clear butyrate dope brushed on works fine. They are definitely not water proof until coated with dope. Usually 2 to 3 coats of slightly thinned dope works great.