Aircraft Covering

05-26-01   This is a picture of a few things you need to start the covering process. Poly-Tac, which is a glue (there's that word again!). Straight trimmers, Pinking shears, paint brushes, and stir sticks. You will also need a regular iron and a hobby iron to tighten up the fabric.  

 This is one of the Horizontal stabilizers before the covering begins.

This is a different part but it shows how you wrap the piece in the fabric getting ready to start gluing.

You can see the hinge points on the Horizontal stabilizers. I marked the cut lines on the fabric and then using a small brush paint a little poly tac(glue) on the line to keep the fabric from fraying when you cut it.

This shows the fabric is glued around the tubing and not around the hinge points.  The hinge points are used to attach the Horizontal stabilizers to the fuselage.

This picture shows a piece of anti-chafing tape put over the wood lattice ribs on the stabilizers. You use this tape to protect the fabric from any sharp places on the aircraft structure.

Here you can see the fabric glued around the tubing of one side of the stabilizer. The cardboard was my way of keeping glue off the inside of the fabric when first learning how to attach fabric!

The next step is to use the iron at about 225 degrees to smooth down the glued fabric over the tubing. You need to smooth this down so when you glue the other side you are attaching to a good smooth surface.  It's hard to smooth things out after you have more than one layer.

Now you turn the piece over and mark where you want the bottom side to come to when you glue it to the fabric.  The rule is that you have to have at least one inch overlap on this piece. If you are doing the leading edge of a wing you must have a 2 inch overlap. I will be using a 2 inch fabric tape over this joint and I want to center the tape on the tube. If you keep the joint on this line the 2 inch tape will cover the joint and be centered on the tube at the same time.  If you look you can see the anti-chafing tape through the fabric.

You have to look close but this picture shows the bottom side wrapping around the tube up to the marked glue line on the top side.

Everything is glued down so it's time to tighten the fabric. First set the iron to 250 degrees and go over the entire piece. First one end then the other and then do the middle. Do this to both sides and then set the iron to 350 degrees and do it all over again to get the maximum tightening.

In this picture we are starting to brush on the first coat of poly-brush which is the first step to seal the fabric. Emillio was kind enough to come by and get me started on the fabric covering process. Emillio covered his Starduster and was a big help getting me over the fear of starting this part of the project.

These are the things required to do the rib stitching. Rib stitching is necessary to keep the fabric from ballooning during flight. Here you can see the needle, string and rib stitch tape.

You stitch from one side to the other every 3 inches on this part of the airplane. The white 2 inch fabric tape will be used to cover the rib stitching using poly-brush as a gluing agent.

This picture shows the completed piece.

One of the steps is to cover all the large areas with two coats of poly-brush. This helps keep pin holes from showing up later. Notice I have put anti-chafing tape over all the rivets to protect the fabric. 

Both wings have the covering laid out over them and ready to start gluing.

After about 5 hard days of covering these are the pieces I have glued up.  I still have the slow part of attaching all the tapes and reinforcement patches.

7-5-01   In this photo I am applying PolyBrush to the fabric. This first coat is meant to seal up the weave of the fabric so all the other coatings will bond well to the fabric. This should always be applied with a brush to force the PolyBrush down into the weave. Later after all the finishing tapes are applied and smoothed out I will Spray another coat of PolyBrush over the entire surface. Fumes from the PolyBrush are very bad for you so I am wearing a forced fresh air mask.

7-9-01  This shows one of the plastic exit rings that is glued to the fabric on the bottom side of the wing. This will allow you to use small screws to hold down the Exit Cover you see in the background. This one is where the Flap push/pull cable will attach to the Flaps.

7-18-01  In place of doing the Rib Stitching like I did on the smaller flight control surfaces the fabric will be attached to the wing ribs using rivets. The first step is to lay down a thin strip of plastic to use as a backing strap. Next you use the sharp point of a soldering iron to melt a hole through the plastic backing as you see here.

When you melt the plastic backing it creates a small ridge around the hole. It was probably not necessary but I chose to grind of the ridge so the rivets would set more flush with the backing strap

The next step is to rivet the backing strap to the wing rib. I used a hand rivet squeezer.

As you can see the rivet and the backing strap will do a good job of holding the fabric to the wing rib. The next step is to cover this with 2" finishing tape.

09-02-01   The wings are now complete to the point of spraying the first coat of PolyBrush. I have set them aside and am now getting ready to cover the Fuselage. I had to build a stand so I can turn the Fuselage around while In the paint booth. It will also come in handy when I start adding all the tapes after the fabric is installed.

This photo show the fabric on the bottom of the fuselage ready for final trimming and gluing.

The next two photos show the bottom fabric installed. I must have spent 3 hours with the iron getting all the wrinkles out. The fabric must be smooth before you glue the next piece on or the wrinkles telegraph through the second piece and it is very hard to get two layers of wrinkles smoothed out.

This is the fabric laid out on the left side before doing any trimming. I glued the bottom stringer first and then started at the vertical stabilizer and worked my way around the top stringer, the door opening and then up to the firewall.

The next two pictures shows the fuselage with the bottom and the left side of the fabric installed. This has taken two 10 hour days to get this much done and I have not even started ironing out the wrinkles on the left side!! I'm getting just a little tired of the IRON!

10-22-01   Didn't want everyone to think I had stopped working on the covering. This picture shows how far I am at this time. ALL, I say ALL, parts are now covered. I still have to do the first coat of Poly-Brush and do the tapes and reinforcing patches but at least all the fabric is attached!!!