 |
The Dauntless has a "combing/bead" that goes all the way around the wing to cover the flange connection at the dihedral joint of each wing. This bead is kind of like a "rounded off triangle" almost to the point of being a half-circle. To produce this effect, I used a stick of balsa, and sanded it down to get the appropriate bead profile/shape. I was able to bend it around the gradual curves of the airfoil, but had to resort to drastic measures to get it to go around the tight curve of the leading edge.
I tried wetting, bending and warping it around the wing, but it was just too tight a curve. So, I actually bent small sections to the point that the stick would break. Then I hit the breaks with CA to stiffen them up and get them to hold their bend. With a few breaks, I made a somewhat "polygon-like" curve to apply to the leading edge area. This was smoothed out by adding some putty and sanding until I got a seamless curve continuing around the wing. Note that I also had to run the bead across my retract access hatch and cut it so the hatch could still be removed, with the bead section attached.
 I used the Sanding Sealer and WB Poly on the bead (no glass cloth) to prepare the surface for primer & sanding. When all work was done, I ended up with a pretty convincing joint bead. It will look even better when I add the thin black lines for the rubber gasket material that sticks out from under the bead on each side.
|
