Covering - Vert Stab to Top Fuselage transition

[LSaupe]

O.K.:

Had one unsuccessful attempt at this transition while covering. Tried to do one piece at first but now plan to do this in two separate pieces (left and right). Is there a trick to this (like glue to the front beam then radius beam, or side beams first etc.)?

The rest of the plane has gone fine, but this one seems to be a bugger.

Any thoughts here greatly appreciated.

[Tom Waid]

Here is my experience.

During the middle of the heat-shrinking I almost gave up. It then occurred to me that I had to work the iron so that it touched every bit of the fabric. That means, carefully work your way into every fold. After some tense moments I finally experienced success.

[rosslr]

Larry,

We too tried it in one piece to start with and then did in two pieces.

We achieved it by gluing to forward first, then moved it rear wards, gluing both the side overlap and the middle simultaneously until it started to curve up sharply to the transition. we cut darts into the curved part and glued it in place. When that dried we worked along the side pulling down and back and gluing it. I never thought the baggy fabric would iron out - but it did, even though it took a bit of work.

I understand that it is not easy and probably is probably as much art as it is technique! I remember thinking it looked a little untidy along the middle frame as it curved upwards but it all looked fine after the tapes were applied and painted.

I don't have any photos of the process but I have attached a couple of the result. I f you can zoom in on your machine you can see the darts that we cut into the curve to make it lie flat.

I dont know if this is the correct method Larry but we were happy with the result.

Good luck.

Ross

[AirFox]

I was able to do the job in one piece. Take a look at my build thread. "Noble build" There are also some pictures in my covering photo album. The technique that I used is as follows.
Glue across the front then work your way along the sides gluing 6" at a time. You have to work pretty hard when you get to the vertical stab. I just glued a couple inches at a time.

Took three attempts to get it right but it sure looks good. I have also seen good results with the technique Ross used.

Good luck
Scott

[jiott]

This seems to be an area where many people do it different ways. There is no right or wrong way, and most folks are quite happy with their result. My particular method was to use one piece of fabric for for the fuse side and over the top to the top centerline. Therefore no seams on the top outer tubes, just one seam (with darts like Ross) on the top centerline. This seemed to make the transition area to the vertical stab go fairly easy because you are only doing half at a time.

[HighWing]

Larry, it seems that most of the guys who have responded are building 7s. Your three is much different as the 7s have a dorsal fin that reduced the abrupt up curve of the rudder from the flat fuselage top. Some have added a fin to the top of the earlier models to make the transition a little easier. I checked my manual and the section instructions is preceded by "Now comes the hard part". If you haven't added a "dorsal fin" my manual calls for covering the top back to the cross tube just forward of the up sloping tube of the vertical fin. Then there is supposed to be enough spare fabric from covering the left side to wrap it up and then over the curved forward vertical fin tube. They recommend gluing in about two or three inch segments pulling and stretching to get things as smooth as possible. It says to do the two or three inch segments and allow the Polytack to fully dry before going to the next sgment. After this is done, then to use a scrap to do the same thing on the left side - by first making a fabric to fabric joint at the longeron that is allowed to fully dry then doing the two or tree segment thing at the vertical tube.

I did put the dorsal fin on my second IV, and from what I see, I did use two sections of fabric to cover that area as I an see the fabric to fabric joing on the fin, but can't remember the specific technique - sorry.

[BobRS]

Follow this link to my post on how to do the Razorback in 1 piece with photos. I recommend that you pull out the MEK and try at least one more time with this info. You will be much happier with the result when you paint.

http://www.teamkitfox.com/Forums/sho...ighlight=BobRS

BobRS, N104Y, SS7, 914 Turbo
Alb, NM
About 2 months to 1st flt

[n85ae]

I did two piece, and honestly I've never even ever looked at it since the
plane has been finished ... So it really (in my opinion) is something you could
agonize a lot over, and then find it really didn't matter ... I'd do two piece
and just keep moving if it were me ...

Regards,
Jeff

[HighWing]

I have to agree with Jeff. I checked mine this morning to see if I could determine how in and in what sequence I did my two step cover. I did see a slight hint of the fabric bond in the center, but quite honestly there are enough other Oops on the airplane that if I started making a list of what I would do differently, until this discussion, I seriously doubt it would even be considered.

[mr bill]

I did not use a radius to blend the dorsal and the vertical stabilizer, but I did use two pieces.