Tim Bellville wrote: > Do you see any problems using a handheld with it's own antenna not grounded > to the airframe? Would it be the same as in a Spam can?
I don't know if it would be any worse than if attached to the radio, but it might be, since the rado frame probably acts as a primitive ground plane. It certainly wouldn't be as good as a spam can, since they really do have ground planes. But I'm no expert on antennas. > As far as the feather fill, I too am not trying to achieve perfection but > get close as I can within reason and feather fill is said to be great at > sanding and filling imperfections, But I still want the UV protection from > the smooth prime. I can't help but think that Feather Fill has been written into KR folklore with old issues of the Newsletter with a status that it probably deserved then, but wouldn't rate now. I went to buy some last year and had to special order the stuff. The guy at the paint store said he just didn't ever sell it anymore...no demand at all. It's 30 year old technology, and you know as well as I do that paint has come a long way in 30 years. I used DuPont's Ultimate 2K urethane primer on mine. It has a high build, filled all the scratches from my 80 grit sandpaper that I "finished" with, and is impervious to just about everything, just like urethane paint. I could have primed the plane with it, gotten oil all over the belly during testing, and just wiped it off with a solvent and painted it later on. Just about all automotive paint has UV protection built into it now. The clearcoat that I'm using is where all the UV protection is in the Nason basecoat/clearcoat system. This protects the clearcoat, the paint, the primer, and the composites below. I guess manufacturers got the clue in the 80's with all that clearcoat fading to oblivion on the hoods of so many GM cars. Smooth Prime's great claim to fame is filling pinholes, and it does that by virtue of having a relatively slow drying time so that you have time to force the stuff down into the pin holes with a roller. Once that's done, Smooth Prime has done its job in my book, and the majority of it can be sanded off. After that, it's time for a coat of whatever primer your topcoat requires, and the top coat. I think the use of peelply goes a long way toward eliminating the need for Smooth Prime entirely, and it sure is a lot quicker, less messy, and cheaper! I should mention that I'm not an expert on paint either....I just play one on KRNet! I'm just forwarding what I've learned in the last few months in hopes that it might help others. Painters that actually know what they are talking about are welcome to chime in... Mark Langford, Huntsville, AL N56ML "at" hiwaay.net see KR2S project at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford
