Conference vmszoo::rc

    tom, heres a half-baked idea for drawing a line around the fuse.
    rough-cut to fit a temporary former from stiff straight ply and
    temporarily install where you want to cut the fuse.  then with
    dark magic marker trace around this former which is hopefully
    straight.  you should be able to see the line thru the glass.
    remove former and cut along line.
    this assumes you can work in the fuse, can align the former in
    in the fuse, etc etc.
    just a thot.
    kevin

    Tom,
    
    Assuming the spinner ring is nice and square, tack-glue an oversized
    piece of ply or any other rigid material that is flat/square and will
    stay that way.  Now, measure back from this surface to the desired
    location of the fuse and make a mark with a china-marker type felt-pen.
    repeat this step all around the fuse `til you have a dotted line
    drawn all around the circumference.
    
    The rest is easy, just connect the dots.  I use a hefty rubberband
    for this purpose, aligning it with the dots and sighting along its
    length to assure it's straight.  When satisfied, gently trace
    along the edge of the rubberband with the china-marker pen and,
    Viola! you have yer' separation line and are ready to cut.  The
    same thing can be done using masking tape but, on a particularly
    irregular or compound curved fuse, it can be quite difficult to
    get the tape to readily follow the dots...that's where I came up
    with the rubberband idea some years ago.         
    
    For fitting the cheeck-cowls, you might try using balsa, 1/16" ply
    or even heavy card paper to cut-and-fit a template of the nose cur-
    vature by the trial-and-error method.  Once you've achieved an exact
    fit, the template is used to transfer the curvature to the cheek-
    cowls.  Two templates may be required if the curvature at the top
    of the cheek is much different than that at the bottom.  I had to
    do this to fit the cheek scoops to the nose of the MiG-3.  Some
    minor final fitting may be required but this'll get you into the
    ballpark with minimum effort.  Once the cheeks are installed, you'll
    probably want to go around them with some cloth/resin anyway and
    this will fill any slight imperfections.  Again, this was how I
    installed the scoops on the MiG-3's nose and they're still tight
    as a drum...no cracks or anything.
    
    Adios amigo,	Al
    

    Well... Al described my idea for getting a straight line to cutoff
    the cowl.   Rather simple when you think about it.  But I did'nt
    have even a faint idea on the cheek cowlings.
    
    Happy Building Tom!
    
    L8R,
    
    Chris

    I have an opinion about people who enter suggestions they have never
    tried, but here is one such suggestion:
    
    What if the structure to be marked were to be put nose down in an
    empty bowl and braced properly.  Then some water with a detergent
    for uniform wetting and food coloring for marking would be added to
    the right height, allowed to sit for a minute, and then sucked out?
    Wouldn't the model be stained below a [mathematically flat] line?
    
    The technique would work with very odd shaped bodies if the water
    were to wet the surface well.  Al's technique is straight forward
    and less messy, but probably less accurate on Coke bottle shapes.
    
    From my "personal name", you can see I have a bias.

>    What if the structure to be marked were to be put nose down in an
>    empty bowl and braced properly.  Then some water with a detergent
>    for uniform wetting and food coloring for marking would be added to
>    the right height, allowed to sit for a minute, and then sucked out?
>    Wouldn't the model be stained below a [mathematically flat] line?

Sounds great - now if you replaced the water with rubbing alcohol you 
would not have to worry about soaking the wood.  If you mixed up some
epoxy (which can be thinned with alcohol) then you could even fuel
proof the nose at the same time.  

I wonder if we could add some of that Easter Egg die that floats on the
surface so that we could make a psychedelic color paint pattern at the same
time.  If we can apply this technique to painting we could more easily
do two tone paint jobs where the bottom half is white and the top Camouflage.

Anybody have a bowl with a 60" wing span?

              _!_      
Bye        ----O----   
Kay R. Fisher / \     

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    > Anybody have a bowl with a 60" wing span?
    	
    I do, and I bet you do too... it's called a "bathtub" 
    	
    Now, just convince your S.O. that you really do have both oars
    in the water as you fill the tub with warm water, and float a thin
    scum of oil-base paint on it, then carefully dip your favorite model
    into the mess...
    	
    	:-)    :-)   :-)   :-)   :-)