Stage one
I removed my long forgotten Super Cub from the box and surveyed the damage. All of the damage was limited to the foam and the electronics functioned perfectly. I knew I would need a new wing and maybe some other parts, so a quick look at www.flyzone-
planes.com was in order. You will be happy to know that Flyzone and most of the other manufacturers of micro RTF planes offer an extensive list of replacement parts. To make things easy, I ordered a fuselage set, tail feather set, as well as a wing and de- cal set. Should you be working on a new, out of the box model, you will still need to order a set of the model’s decals as the ones on the current model will not survive.
The original Flyzone Super Cublooking a little worse for wear (above) after a failed attempt of an outside loop. Fortunately parts cannot only be replaced but the model can be repainted (below) and given an all new look, complete with customized N numbers.
Next, I carefully disassembled the model, taking care to catalog all of the parts. You will need every landing gear and strut part, so it is best to keep these parts in a container so you don’t loose them as you work on the larger components. The struts and wing are held on with double sided tape and the tail feathers are secured with glue. You can soft- en the tape and glue joints with Satellite City Debonder. Carefully remove the elec- tronics, pushrods and plastic clevis and landing gear.
Prep work
Next, I needed to remove the factory paint finish from the new parts as well as the cur- rent parts. A good friend of mine suggested Satellite City Debonder, which works well in removing the paint without harming the foam. This product is usually used for debonding CA but in this case it works great in safely removing the factory finish. It is important to work in a well ventilated room at this point as the debonder is a solvent based product.
Using paper towels, simply moisten the towel with the debonder and wipe the towel onto the surface of the model. Areas such as the wing and tail feathers come off quickly, but the foam fuselage proved to be a bit more stubborn. Take your time and remove as much of the old finish as you can. This process is somewhat tedious but is neces- sary for the colors in the next step to really look good, and to keep the overall weight of the model down.
rying box. Flash forward to about six months later when an indoor event was fast ap- proaching and thoughts of getting the little Super Cub back into shape sprang to mind.
Planning
As with any project, a bit of planning is re- quired. Not to worry, if you enjoy scale mod- eling or full-size aviation, you will find this process to be very enjoyable. Although I’m using the Flyzone Super Cub as an example here, the basics can be translated to almost any micro model. The Flyzone Super Cub, while not 100% scale, has a profile that is undeniably that of a Super Cub. I spent a few hours looking at schemes on the web simply by using a com- mon search engine and searching for Piper PA-18 Super Cub, then selecting the search engine’s image function. Another on-line re- source for aircraft markings of all types is
www.airliners.net. This is an ever expand-
FLYING MODELS
ing photo database that is updated by en- thusiasts who like to photograph aircraft. Everything from EAA homebuilts to the lat- est Airbus can be found on this website. It features a search engine, so finding page af- ter page of a specific aircraft is easy. Finally, another good resource for schemes may be in the very hobby shop you go to pick up your models and modeling supplies. Usu- ally a row or two over is the plastic model aisle. While most of these plastic models cater to the warbird variety, many model companies, such as Minicraft and Revell- Monogram, have models of popular civilian aircraft. In my case, I was able to find the
scale Super Cub model kit. The scheme dates from the mid-1950s and also lends it- self well to the way the model is constructed, which meant masking would be easy for the most part. With a scheme picked out it was time to head to the shop.
⁄32
scheme you see here on a Revell-Monogram 1
Base color In most aircraft paint schemes, specifically civilian, there is a base color, a secondary col- or and one or more trim colors. In the case of the 1950’s era Super Cub scheme I picked out, I had a base color of silver, a secondary color of red and a trim color of black. This simple scheme could be easily duplicated with just two cans of spray paint and the orig- inal Flyzone decal sheet.
Separate the major parts that are to be painted into two areas. In this case I had a set of parts that will painted silver and a set that will be painted red. Because silver is the lighter of the two colors, I started there. The parts that I wanted painted silver were the main gear, fuselage bottom, wing, struts, horizontal stabilizer and vertical sta- bilizer. Make sure the parts are clean and ready for paint.
For paint, I used Tamiya brand of model paint. I have found Tamiya paint to be the best spraying paint and the coverage is bet- ter than other hobby paint, because the noz- zles on Tamiya spray cans deliver a much finer spray than other paints. You can easily
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