Restoring the Jr Satan

Ken,

I have an original Jr. Satan Kit, with original plans. If you should need any info then feel free to hit me up. Nice work BTW! Can't wait to hear how it flies.

Ron

Ron, thank you for that offer. I do have a question. Does the JR have the gussets on each side of the boom which are directly glued to the trailing edge? These would be triangular stock that stops the booms from swaying from side to side. I know my Lil Satan has these but I saw no remnants of glue or wood on this model. These booms are quite short, so I certainly feel it wouldn't be an issue. I recently built a Demon which is 36" and extended the stock booms to 6" from trailing edge to center of stab pivot which resulted in a lot of sway side to side. I wish I did place those gussets on there. Ken

Ken Cook wrote: Ron, thank you for that offer. I do have a question. Does the JR have the gussets on each side of the boom which are directly glued to the trailing edge? These would be triangular stock that stops the booms from swaying from side to side. I know my Lil Satan has these but I saw no remnants of glue or wood on this model. These booms are quite short, so I certainly feel it wouldn't be an issue. I recently built a Demon which is 36" and extended the stock booms to 6" from trailing edge to center of stab pivot which resulted in a lot of sway side to side. I wish I did place those gussets on there. Ken

Yep, they are 1/16 balsa and extend from the trailing edge half way down the booms.

Ken -

Very nice restoration so far -- looking forward to your completion.

This may help somewhat. I also have the plans in PDF if you would like them.

I forgot to put the gussets on my Li'l Satan's tail booms. Never have gotten around to it.

I see there were never any signs of these gussets mounted on my plane. I can see the reasoning for them on the Lil Satan due to the booms being balsa. In this case I have 1/8" 5 ply which has been tapered. I really believe they'll just present issues at the covering stage. THis is pretty old school compared to what we've been flying. I just like the nostalgia factor. I'm flying 1/2 A combat planes with almost as much wing area as a full size Voodoo has. The Medallion is locked up solid and in need of a good earned cleaning. That will be the job today. I finished sheeting the rest and tying up the ends of the leadouts. I see on the prints Andrew provided the weight is 11-13oz's. I'm curious to see what this is as it does feel heavy without engine. Whoever silked the plane put some kind of filler mixed in with the dope, kinda talc like. It doesn't sand well. I've tried sanding it down as much as possible but I think for now smoothing things out and ironing on the covering is the best option. Ken

I've had a few evenings to do some more work on the Jr Satan. I find it quite funny how this old relic has taken the front stage in my things to do in modelling. Many thanks to Ron for providing me the decals which truly look great. Seeing the Lil Satan builds and flights from Ron and also Jim on the forum was pretty inspiring. In fact, I liked the color schemes so much I decided to take the same route. I really like the red covering and black body part scheme. Problem with black is you can't see the elevator easily when trimming for neutral initially. This just requires 2 people to be certain which isn't the worst thing. The covering is complete and the raw wood tail booms, nacelle, elevator have now received 3 coats of dope and is ready for the finish. I elected to paint with Nelson water based urethane. Works great, and has a real decent shine to it. When the additional crosslinker is added it stands up to 40% nitro continuously. My engine isn't going to require higher than 10% nitro so this should really be durable.

One thing I might add is the additional steps I went through on the elevator. I'm not a fan of having the pins that hold the elevator on just being retained by a through hole in the boom so brass bushings were added. In addition, the original had 2 straight pieces of 1/16" music wire for hinge pins. These get wrapped with fiberglass tape and secured with glue. I lost a combat wing in the past doing this as the pins ripped out of the tape. I bent new pins which were L shaped roughed up and epoxied into the elevator then wrapped with glass and epoxied.

I should be seeing test flights shortly and hopefully will have the color added this week. This was really a neat little piece and was destined for the trash can. Seeing other posts of the swap meet specials and the restorations being done on them is quite appealing. It just fascinates me that with a little TLC things can once be made to work again. The neat thing about this hobby is that the engines for instance rarely break and with a little care and cleaning works again. Seeing that most items today were designed to be thrown away, it really takes me back seeing this old stuff work again. Ken

I love fixing up other peoples throwaways:
Before
https://i.imgur.com/lDcsS.jpg

And after
https://i.imgur.com/xB4d5.jpg

Sorry for the hijack

Ken,

I wish you were able to add pictures. What you described though sounds very interesting especially the elevator hinges. I noticed on my Li'l Satan that they seemed flimsy although no one has ever complained of loosing one of the 1/2A ones.

I too have a Jr. Satan so I can't wait for the flight report!

Ron

Jim, the after pic reminds of the Raleigh Professional. I love the Brooks saddle. Ken

cribbs74 wrote:...I noticed on my Li'l Satan that they seemed flimsy although no one has ever complained of loosing one of the 1/2A ones.

I did, on traveling prop day. It fell out right after Matt's flight. It slipped out from under the fiberglass. We were about to fly it again when the stabilator flopped off of one hinge. It has stronger steel pins now with bent ends.

I'm still awaiting the engine installation as it's gummed up solid. I want to do a thorough cleaning on it and make sure all is good. Hopefully no issues on it. I covered the plane and painted the nacelle, tail booms and stab with Nelson water based poly followed by clear Nelson. I really like this paint although it's taken me quite a while to even somewhat figure out it's working characteristics. It really has terrific fuel proof qualities unlike any paint I ever used that was designed for this hobby. Ron Cribbs provided me with the decals and all looks
good. Hopefully will get to take it out this upcoming weekend . It was a fun rebuild. Ken

That's absolutely beautiful, smooth and glassy like I like them. Did you freehand that long devil tail? I like the enclosed nacelle too. Is that stock, or your mod?
I'm interested in finding out more about your fuel proofing. I'll go back and re-read the thread before I start asking questions about it.

I just got back from searching for Nelson water based polyurethane. It's apparently either hard to master the application, or the posts I read were made by people who were too heavy handed and impatient. I've had similar problems with my paints when I get in a hurry. But I'm sure I could use the Nelson compounds successfully, however I still haven't found a source to buy it. Can you point me in the right direction? I'd like to be able to turn out fuel-proof work without having to use epoxy glue.
Thanks,
Rusty

Rusty, that tail trim is Monokote. Nelson paint matches Monokote and some Ultracote better than any paints I ever used. Jerry Nelson was the owner of Nelson Hobby paints. Jerry has sold the business to a fellow named John Desilets. http://www.nelsonhobby.com/hobby_paint.php. I see the link isn't working and John isn't accepting orders until January 2013 My stock is old from when Jerry owned the company. Jerry sold the business about a year and half ago. I haven't purchased from John. The paint is an entire system. It does come with a two part epoxy primer. I've used this primer but I use a coat or two of nitrate dope for the substrate first instead of the primer I prefer the dope due to already having it. The primer however works and sands very well though. What you see in that picture was painted this morning start to finish and I could've flown it this afternoon. The entire paint job was done with about a 1/2oz of paint. That would be clear as well. I used about 1/2 a teaspoon of clear.

Butyrate dope and laquer primers don't work with this paint. Kilz water based primer is another primer that could be used. I know of people that have used it but I still like the dope as a base due to it sealing the wood. Nelson paints take practice and I had lots of it. It doesn't come from the first try. In addition, The colors mix from one to another terrifically. The more humid out, the better the paint works and the better the shine. The paint dries from chemical reaction and evaporation. This product is very similar to Minwax Polycrylic except it has outstanding fuel resistance when the crosslinker is added. This paint doesn't need to be dry for the next coat to be applied. In fact if you wait more than 7 hrs, it has to be sanded and recoated. It does run and it would turn out great if sprayed but I use a throw away sponge brush. I learned the hard way on why I was getting runs in between coats. I was cleaning the sponge brush using dish detergent. Soap reduces the surface tension of water so it would go on beautifully then run all over.

I figured that one out the hard way. I use distilled water to thin typically a few drops and mix in a small custard jar. The product can be returned to the bottle as long as no cross linker was added. It can be sanded and polished just like dope. It sounds like the paint of all paints. However, my results have been lots and lots of trials. Ken

It looks fantastic Ken. Great Job. Now I need to get some Nelson paints!! That finish would look great on a Cosmic Wind.

Ron

I'd like to think I inspired your finishing scheme.

https://i.imgur.com/xDTgW.jpg

Ron, I like your darker shade of red better than my Ultracote shade. What's yours called.

Does anyone think a Tee Dee will perform better on its side than with the cylinder up like mine? This was the only way I could see to protect the needle from landing damage. A remote is the best answer, but I'll have to concoct that, which I plan to do soon.

It's monokote, your favorite

I can't remember off hand, I can look tomorrow. I can even send you some if you want.

Ron

cribbs74 wrote:It's monokote, your favorite

I can't remember off hand, I can look tomorrow. I can even send you some if you want.

Ron

Ah, okay then. Nah you can keep it, thanks. I was editing when you posted this. Asking another question.

RknRusty wrote:Ron, I like your darker shade of red better than my Ultracote shade. What's yours called.

Does anyone think a Tee Dee will perform better on its side than with the cylinder up like mine? This was the only way I could see to protect the needle from landing damage. A remote is the best answer, but I'll have to concoct that, which I plan to do soon.

You could also buy a Venturi spacer from cox international. It goes between the needle assembly and the carb body and allows you to rotate the needle to the other side.
Jim

I googled and this link should work

On site sez not taking orders until January

http://www.nelsonhobby.com/index.php

JPvelo wrote:You could also buy a Venturi spacer from cox international. It goes between the needle assembly and the carb body and allows you to rotate the needle to the other side.
Jim

Either side is the same. If the cylinder is on the side, I can mount the NV so the needle either points up or it points down. If it's pointed down and I land on the belly I bend the needle. If it's pointed up and it lands land on its back I bend the needle. I test mounted the engine at a 45 degree angle to see if it was protected and the needle is still exposed.

This venturi spacer?
http://coxengines.ca/cox-.049-venturi-spacer-3.html
What does it do? I can already put the needle on either side by just removing it and flipping it over. Am I missing something?

Fredvon, Thanks for the link to the Nelson finishing products.