Badland Part 103 Pilots and Builders Forum

a buddy suggested that I might try tracing patterns for the Oratex on pattern/tracing paper. Searching the internet I found a 150' x 36" roll for under $30 from Utrecht Art supplies. (www.UtrechtArt.com). The roll arrived yesterday and it is proving to be a useful mechanism.

I get rough dimensions of the area (especially useful for the vertical Stab), cut a piece, then clamp it roughly in place. It is not nearly so unwieldly as the Oratex itself or the brown craft paper and is very translucent for tracing the pattern.



I can then cut the pattern out oversize and move it around on the Oratex Roll to best utilize the expensive material.



Saturday I expect delivery of my Sentinel Heat Gun curved nozzle (for deflecting the hot air around the fuselage tubing). I hope this will make smoothing out the "kinks" in the Oratex around the cockpit tubing an easier job. I found it on Amazon.

I'll post a report sometime over the weekend.

That nozzle looks like it should do the trick! I just ended up working the heat gun around the tubes as best as I could, sacrificing the occasional finger in the process.

Really like the tracing idea. Reminds me of what I did when I re-did the counters in my kitchen, using cardboard cut to the original counter, then laying the cardboard on MDF and cutting. There were two pieces of MDF that had to connect up, and with the patterns they did so perfectly. Can't even tell they are two separate boards under the Epoxy countertop. Since I want to try multi-color, knowing where all the frame rods are is going to be essential, and this looks like it'll do it without any issue. Great idea and looking good Kurt.

Todd

Entire day spent with the tracing paper and layout on the fuselage and vertical stabilizer Sky Blue on my office floor ... not quite enough surface area. It was not until I was rolling up the skins that it struck me that I should have been doing this on the hangar floor ... inspiration too late for fuselage. I should be able to do the wings, flaperons, rudder, elevator and horizontal stabilizer on my work table.