Oratex Fabric Covering Revisited

[Cherrybark]

I used Google Sketchup to layout the cutting plan for my project. Laying out the wing panels this way "wastes" a lot of fabric and others may have cut some of the smaller pieces from this fabric. Lars cautioned against cutting close to the finished dimension and, as you have seen, the fabric is slightly shrinking while you heat activate the glue. I ordered 30 meters of fabric. As you may have already learned, when you order several yards (er, meters) of Oratex, the factory is likely to offer you various combinations of roll lengths to complete your order. One of my selections, shown in the cutting plan, was three rolls totaling 35 meters. Oratex is very generous with their fabric. Each of the rolls had more fabric than shown on the label - up to two extra meters in one roll. Of course, you can't count on this. I had plenty of fabric left over. You might roll out all of the fabric and measure before you start cutting.

Unless Lars has finally convince the factory to stage product in Alaska, you will be paying FedEx a lot of money if you have to buy additional covering supplies. I originally ordered 3 liters of adhesive and had to order an extra liter towards the end. Three liters will probably do the job and some of my pre-glue paint job ended up using more glue than necessary.

Hopefully you can get an estimate of the required fabric by looking at the drawing. I'm happy to send you the SketchUp (free software) file if you like. Please, please, please double check these measurements against your plane.

After completing the tail feathers, you'll enjoy covering the wings.