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I'll give you the straight poop on fillers, putties, abrasives, adhesives, and glass reinforcements: their types, source of supply, and
usage. Further, I'll show you how to use fillers to actually alter the shape of a surface. And how to take a kit from raw parts through assembly, seam filling, to priming, and ready for paint.
ABOUT THE TESKEY PRODUCTIONS FS-1 KIT
OK, you've ordered your twenty-four inch wide Teskey Productions kit of the FS-1. Oh, wait … what's that knock at the door? (Squeal of delight!) Wow! UPS just dumped the box at your doorstep. You open it with the giddy glee of a five-year-old opening Christmas packages. And … Wham! Just two crummy looking, white gel-coat hull halves. Man! I can't assemble this thing you think. You drop to your knees, snap your neck back and startle the neighborhood dogs with a guttural cry of, "NOOOOoooooo!"
Hey, you got good product for the money spent, believe me. Two reasonably well produced GRP (glass reinforced plastic – fiberglass) sections
that, when cleaned up, modified, enhanced, and painted carefully, will blossom into a fine display or r/c model of the Voyage FLYING-SUBMARINE. Right there, in front of you, you have ninety-percent of what it
will take to achieve your goal of having a nice looking FS-1 model. All you have to do is come up with a way to 'finish' it. Hey, kit-assembler: welcome to my side of the street.
You have a basic hull kit. We in the r/c submarine kit assembly fraternity have come to expect little more from the cottage industry that
supports our hobby. No details and no instructions, that's the norm for us r/c submarine driving kit-assemblers. OK, buck up, time to look your kit over and make some plans.
Examining the two hull halves (this thing is split into an upper and lower hull section) reveals a demarcation line that follows along the
sweeping outboard edges of the integrated hull/wings of the this Manta shaped vehicle. Let's call it a flange line, OK? The lower hull half incorporates the forward and after vertical bulkheads; a design features
that works to the advantage of those who plan to make the FS-1 a practical r/c submarine: You're going to need an access hatch somewhere and the best spot is the panel between the two vertical stabilizers on top.
Having this hatch sit on the top edge of the forward and after bulkheads is a natural - Rick's designing the kit with the two bulkheads as intrinsic parts of the lower hull half was a stroke of genius. You'll come
to appreciate that later when you see how I made the upper panel removable for control, ballast, and propulsion devices installation and maintenance.
Inside the two shells you find that the fiberglass surface is very rough of texture – I suspect it was applied with a chop gun. Smell the
resin in there? The sweet smell within tells you that the glass shards were bonded with polyester resin. In most applications polyester has been replaced by the lower shrinking epoxy and polyurethane laminating
resins, but in this case Rick gets away with using the cheap resin because the many sharp compound curves of the FS-1 design makes the structure almost impervious to warp induced shrinking. Ruffles Have Ridges!
(Structures of simple or mild compound curve are not well rendered using polyester resin, as those structures will warp excessively if
pulled from the mold too soon. Though you don't see it used very often for these reasons, Rick's employment of this type of laminating resin, for this shape, meets with my seal of approval).
One more thing about the fiberglass work here: the bond between the gel-coat (the outer white surface of the parts) and the resin suspended
fiberglass matrix within. The adhesion between gel-coat and glass is outstanding on this kit. I experienced no chipping or bond failure between gel-coat and glass during the entire assembly of my FS-1. No matter how
I attacked the surface with drills, sanding and cutting discs, hacksaw blades … nothing caused any localized failure of the gel-coat-glass bond.
A pleasant surprise, but not an apparent one to those unfamiliar with glass kit production, is that Rick worked out a means of capturing the
two upper hull vertical stabilizer fins – though they are a bit too thick in section for my taste - onto the upper hull. Those fins will never break off!
OK, what does it take to assemble Rick's kit into a good likeness of the FS-1?
The front end of the upper hull is too blunt
– some body filler and fiberglass will re-contour that. Two big circular 'intake' holes have to be punched top and bottom to receive the two gusset lined hemispherical pieces (elements of my 'fittings kit', described later). And a bunch of detail items (parts of the fittings kit) have to be made or acquired from a third-party: front bulkhead intakes, searchlight guards, windowpanes; after bulkhead propulsion nozzles, stern planes, access door, and corrugated panels; hemispherical hull sections with attached mounting gussets; and access hatches which fit atop and on the bottom of the hull. And those are just the items needed to make the model look good – there still remains all the fabrication tasks needed to realize the internal water tight cylinder (WTC), pump-jets, foundations, and control surface linkages.
A FEW THOUGHTS ABOUT YOUR WORKING ENVIRONMENT
For those of you thinking of purchasing this kit and building it up as I have here, a word of caution, if I may: You really don't want to tackle a kit like this unless you have the hand and machine tools to do the work, and a proper facility – a workshop.
Your workshop must be well isolated from your living space - you'll be kicking up a lot of gel-coat, fiberglass, filler, putty, and primer
dust. And you'll be spraying major amounts of atomized primer and paint. And you need privacy. Model building and kit-assembly is a lone activity, best practiced in solitude. And the FS-1 project demands a large,
dedicated workspace where you can cut, sand, paint, and make noise without interference or causing interference to family and neighbors.
At a minimum your workshop should poses: Adequate lighting. Not only plenty of overhead and bounce lighting, but lamps mounted on stands you
can easily position over the work. Magnifying glasses and maybe even a compound loupe attached to a robust pair of glasses. At the very least have a few pair of 'reading glasses' in the shop; these are vital if you
plan on doing detail work on your model (if you have not already, try on a pair and marvel at the sudden increase in the quality of your work).
A master, heavy-duty worktable is a must for banging and vice mounting. And smaller, portable worktables that can be quickly adjusted in
height are very useful.
I have four of those hospital stands that can be slid up and down with the push of a side mounted brake handle. These relatively small and
lightweight tables are typically mounted on casters. These wheeled tables permit easy shuttling around the shop floor to better position your work to the best possible lighting, accessibility to machine tools,
hand-tool electrical outlets, and points of ventilation (during heavy sanding and spray-painting operations).You can keep as many projects working uninterrupted as you have portable tables. Look around for salvage
stores and auctions for these 'hospital portable tables'. I got mine for about fifteen-bucks a piece.
Another point, one that at first blush seems a bit off the 'working environment' theme
here, but is indeed related. Your physical condition; your health.
If I may be a bit forward here: Fat, dizzy, eyesight impaired, out-of-shape diabetic kit-assemblers don't perform in the shop as well as
kit-assemblers who minimize their food intake, exercise, eat balanced meals, and take their med's! You are supposed to be the sharpest tool in the shop! If you don't take care of yourself it will matter little how
many top-of-the-line tools you have or how extensive your research library – if you are weak and infirm of body and mind, your work will always be sub-standard.
Take care of yourself: get some mild exercise in everyday – the activity will not only improve your overall stamina, it also works to break
away the cobwebs from your mind; there's a direct correlation between physical activity and mental acuity. I usually start my day with a long walk, some stretching, and then I sit down and cool off as I address my
e-mails and writing duties at the computer. After an hour of that I'm ready for a days activity in the shop.
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