Scale Curtiss XP-55 Ascender

[Bartman]

How do you spray tooling gel coat?

 

[Jetpainter]

One ting that I forgot to tell you is that I make my actual parts out of epoxy, not polyester resin. For some reason I got in the habit of using polyester resin for the molds, it is a bit cheaper than epoxy but other than that I can think of no advantage. Here is a couple of photo's of the 109E that I did, the first shot is with just the gel coat sprayed, the second photo is with the chopped strand matt in place.

View attachment 84790 View attachment 84791

Thanks Larry!

 

[Larry B]

First off let me set the record straight, I screwed up when I told you guys I use 6oz chopped strand matt to make my molds! I was glassing my Ascender wing today and took a look at the matt, turns out it is 1.5oz matt, sorry about that
Now for your question about how do you spray tooling gel coat. I use a super hi-tec, state of the art setup for this. It is an old $5.00 solvent spray gun that I have converted to spray really heavy materials. This little beauty will really lay the material on nice and thick which is what you want for your mold surface. The only problem is that I can't find a big jar that will work so I end up re-filling the small one many times.

 

[Larry B]

Now back to the Ascender build, today I glassed the lower wing surface. I'll let this cure over night, do a bit of sanding around the edges tomorrow and then glass the top.

 

[Bartman]

thank you for that photo! I have virtually the same air nozzle/gun but I never could figure out what the hole in the side of the nose piece was for! It must have also had a tube to draw in liquid for spraying! my mouth just hung open as I was looking at that photo and realizing what I was looking at.

 

[Larry B]

You are very welcome Bartman It sounds like all you need is a jar, 2 zip ties, and a piece of tubing that will fit your nozzle and you'll be in business.
My wife and I go thru salad dressing quite a bit so I just save the jars for spraying stuff like tooling gel coat and just throw them away after each use, why bother cleaning the jar when I have a box full of them?
You had a spray set-up all along and didn't even know it!

 

[Larry B]

Today was a "mile stone" for the Ascender build. The wing can now be bolted to the fuse and it's all straight!

 

[HRRC Flyer]

 

[Jetpainter]

Looking great! I always love the first time you can see it in one piece.

 

[Larry B]

Hopefully it will be in one piece after the first flight also!