The Poly Fiber manual cautions that black can hot enough to shrink your tapes in direct sun. There was some advice about how to mitigate the issue, but I don't recall what it was now.
The Poly Fiber manual cautions that black can hot enough to shrink your tapes in direct sun. There was some advice about how to mitigate the issue, but I don't recall what it was now.
--Brian
Flying - S7SS
You could do black with white trim, but you might be mistaken for a police car.
Seriously, Josh's airplane looks very attractive in black. Black does get very hot in the sun though. I don't know if that can adversely affect the fabric system or not. I think any effect on paint would depend greatly on the type of paint used.
Edit: Just saw Brian's post ... shrinkage of tapes is a definite potential problem.
John Evens
Arvada, CO
Kitfox SS7 N27JE
EAA Lifetime
Chap. 43 honorary Lifetime
Thanks John! I’m oretty happy with how it looks! Black is pretty much the best colour to avoid fading. Flouresent is the worst. Every product can vary so best t call the manufacturer
------------------
Josh Esser
Flying SS7
Rotax 914iS
AirMaster Prop
Edmonton, AB, CWL3
Thanks John! I’m oretty happy with how it looks! Black is pretty much the best colour to avoid fading. Flouresent is the worst. Every product can vary so best t call the manufacturer
------------------
Josh Esser
Flying SS7
Rotax 914iS
AirMaster Prop
Edmonton, AB, CWL3
That tape shrinkage problem is a very real one with Polyfiber. I heard of a guy with a real dark color (not black) that had most of his finish tapes on the top side shrink about 1/64" on each side in the hot sun, leaving a very narrow white stripe along both sides of the tape as it pulled away and exposed the undercoat.
Jim Ott
Portland, OR
Kitfox SS7 flying
Rotax 912ULS
Wow, yes, hadn't thought of tape shrinkage. As we get very hot in many parts of Australia I intend to fly in (50C+), that could be a real issue. Thanks all for very helpful input.
......and John, Australian police cars are blue and white .... but they still send a cold shiver when you see them in the rear vision mirror ...
David
SS7 Builder
Been doing a lot on my build since my last post several months ago. Having been away from it for 3 months, the dust has settled on everything so it needs a good vacuuming, but I've got a bit done. the paint scheme is decided which will be a combination of yellow/orange and grey with some black striping. So the wings are painted except for some grey highlighting and the fuselage has just the grey at this stage. Temperatures are relatively high here in Aus at the moment so not good weather for painting, even in the early morning or late evening. I did what the polyfiber manual suggested and undercoated the wings with white first before final paint colour. It seems to kick the yellow/orange up nicely.
The doors are built up and hinged to the fuselage with no issues, but I'm looking at making up a better latching system like some of the other builders have done. I particularly like Bruce's hardware store parts style so I'll do something along those lines. I've also fitted up an Alaskan T3 tail spring and AB3200 tailwheel and fork.
Recently I temporarily installed the fin to the vertical fin. Man, what a performance !. The cutouts I made around each hinge had to be enlarged a bit and I spent almost an entire morning trying to get those hinge bolts in. I'm glad I incorporated a removable plug at the base of the rudder because I needed it to shake out all the bolts I dropped !. Needless to say, I'm now very practiced at getting that rudder on without using my entire swear vocabulary - which is very extensive.
Also, when setting up and swaging the rudder cables, I started by following the manual instructions, but found that the rudder pulleys were the main problem. I have dual adjustable rudder pedals and even though I set the left rudder adjustment in the full forward position, and then set the foot brake at maximum travel, the interference came from the rudder torque tube mounted pulleys contacting the firewall. This may be only an issue with the Lyc O-233 installation, but that was the defining problem. And after swaging the cables at the rudder end, I have the same alignment problem as others have noticed; i.e. the rudder control horn is angled slightly up wrt the alignment of the cable swage and cable. This will introduce some out of plane loads at that swage joint but I don't expect them to be overly large. But I'll be keeping an eye on it, so to speak .... and finally, the turtledeck has been fitted up and I'm about to start building up each flaperon. All good so far and progress is going well (Fingers crossed).
The link to my photos is at: (hope this link works)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/bAChA2qGE3rtp9DB9
Edited: Forgot to mention, I ended up putting an adjustable rudder stop on because I made a stuffup when cutting the stop horns ... and then spent an hour crying tears of frustration into my single malt. The old adage, measure twice, cut once was lit bright and flashing in my brain after this ...
Last edited by David47; 01-08-2019 at 05:14 PM.
David
SS7 Builder
Looks great David. I think more of is than not have ended up with adjustable rudder stops. It may not be your fault. The manual directs you to cut the stops earlier than you should.
I can't wait to see your paint scheme. I'm kind of fond of orange and grey!
--Brian
Flying - S7SS
That's looking good Dave! Yes, I too have adjustable rudder stops!
Looking forward to rest of it coming together now!
cheers
r
Ross
Mt Beauty, Vic
OZ
Sold to Richard and Scott Taubman in OZ, 2019. Kitfox SS7,Rotax 912is Sport, Airmaster CSP 75" blades.
Landcruiser and Cub off road camper (doesn't get any kudos on this forum!)
Another "back in the day post". Tape shrinking. A guy from Newport News who was an engineer working at the Submarine manufacturing facility there flew a Model IV. His specific responsibility on the submarines was testing structures with crew safety in mind. On one annual, he had his airplane in a darkened hangar and placing a bright light in his wings, he found that he could see the light alongside the pinked edge of most of the finish tapes. Having access to some testing equipment, he put remote reading temperature sensing devices in the wings and put his airplane in the sun. He found that internal temps approached the low range of Polyfiber shrinking temperatures. And the surprise - for me at least - his paint color was not particularly dark. Dont recall, but definitely not black.