As I sit here writing this, it has again started to snow.  While it's true that the days are longer and the temps warmer, I no longer believe spring will ever arrive.

At our January meeting, Norm Anderson gave a great demo no color selection.  Norm did a very good job explaining things in such a way that made the principles almost fireman proof.  After taking his color wheel home, I decided to rethink the paint scheme and colors for my Thunderbird because what I had intended suddenly didn't seem so cool.

Also at the meeting was an L.A. 40 that Tony Kubes made a spinner, venturi, and custom needle valve assembly for.  These were really nice looking parts, and if I recall Tony is willing to make them for others.  I know that I'll need some.

My projects are moving along fine, although at a pace somewhat slower then I'd prefer.  IT seems like there's always something to divert my attention.

Model building sort of goes in starts and stops.  You open the box and start sticking the pieces together and before long you've got something large that shows an amount of progress.  Then you end up spending hours and hours putzing with some small widget or wet sanding or running back to the hobby store to replace the dope you just dropped on your driveway, and things start to slow down again.  After awhile you fight your way through that phase and once again you start adding big stuff like flaps, landing gear, motor, prop, and fuel tank.  Soon your gem is finished and you can forget about that tedious middle portion of this imaginary model building flow chart.

Of course, there are a million steps to this flow chart that I've omitted just to keep it simple, and I haven't even touched on the secondary diversions that take their toll on the overall timeline that's been set for completion and must be figure into the flow chart.  A couple of examples are family dynamics, home maintenance, and that pesky work schedule.  It's a miracle that we can finish them at all and totally amazing that Willey Aircraft Works can turn them out like world war two B-24's - one every 17 minutes.

Shifting gears a little, I'd like to point out the 2004 schedule that Bob has put somewhere in this Newsletter.  For the most part it's complete, although some evens from other clubs are not in it because their dates have not been established.  Because of our past agreement, our very friendly neighbor (you know the one) is to get a copy of our schedule, and only a copy of our schedule, in February.  It is a little early for all of the clubs to post events and align calendars, so when I find out more information such as dates, evens, and locations, I'll post them.  I know the Midwest Control Line Association has a meeting coming up, and their schedule is one of the topics.

Lastly, I'd like to remind everyone that our annual swap meet takes place at this month's meeting.  Bring all the goodies you've decided to live without and maybe someone else will have been looking for just that item.  I believe the purpose here is not so much to pad our retirement accounts, but to help the other guy (works both ways) so let's try not to have the "my stuff is worth gold - your stuff is worth dirt" attitude and keep the prices in range with what another guy will or can afford to pay.

See you at the meeting,
Keith Sandberg

Vice President's Column

There is snow outside the window and the wind is blowing.  Must be winter in Minnesota.  But maybe there will be enough moisture that the summer won't resemble the Dust Bowl again.  Tough choice between mowing the grass or sweeping up the sand...

I've run across a couple of little odds and ends that I thought were interesting.  Now, you understand that I specialize in being a day late and a dollar short, so if you know about these, OK, fine.  But they are at least a little new to me.  One of 3M's Sandblaster sanding pads.  These are small rectangular foam sanding pads with yellow abrasive.  They're flexible and washable and I haven't really worn one out yet.  So far, I've found 180 and 320 grit.  They seem to cut a little faster than the same grit on paper.  The best uses so far are knocking down the first coasts of dope on bare wood and using 320 to put a final finish on an in-between coat of paint.  The bad news id that they are kind of spending-about $2.75 each.  But they last so long, that they seem a lot more reasonable the more you use them.

You might have noticed a note in SN about making glow drivers.  I just bought a new regular DuBro 1300 mah glow driver and the cold at the Freeze Fly killed it off in a hurry.  So I tried the technique describe.  I bought a 4400 mah "D" size ni-cad cell, soldered a glo plug lead on it, and (now he gets to the point!), and dipped the entire mess in a can of plier handle dip.  It's called PlastiKote.  You know how plier handle have that rubbery coating?  You can buy the stuff in a can, and it is very hand for dipping and sealing all sorts of things.  The battery pack turned out very neat and rugged looking.

Last but not least, this is a pretty technical piece, but interesting maybe to someone out there.  Here's the link: http://www.supercoolprops.eftel.com/articles.htm

There are several articles highlighted (down the rigght side near the bottom) that talk about choosing between props, power absorption, airfoils, and other really esoteric stuff.  I know I'm not gonna understand much of it any time soon, but there a few nuggets to be gained, I think.  Have a look and see what you think.

We went to the Marion RC Flyers meeting last night and had a terrific meeting.  The Piston Poppers are invited down pretty much any time.  The tentative schedule is for another fly-in on Saturday, June 26 with a Sunday rain date.  But there is a standing offer for any weekend if we let 'em know a little ahead of time.  Darryl Wick said they'd even put more gas in the mower!  But the highlight of the evening was a visit from Bob Fenske of Rochester.  Bob is clearly a way better than average modeler with a real sense of history.  He brought a large variety of Jim Walker things to show, including the 404 Interceptor folding-wing gliders and a brand spanking new FireBall with clear dope finish and an original Forster 29 sparky.  He also had a free-running pusher prop powered boat with a flat bottom and three fins to guide it.  It looks about as stable as a unicycle, but very cute.  The last was a free-running snow sled.  It's built of bulkheads and 1/16th inch planking.  It has three metal skis mounted on brass springs.  The front one is steerable, but it's not clear why.  This thing is powered by a pusher mounted McCoy .098 engine that looks an awful lot like a Fox 15X.  Frank Macy now has a DVD out about Walker.  It is said to be great, with lots of original footage.  We'll be ordering one and perhaps it can be shown at a meeting before too long.  Enough!  Get that new ship painted and lets go fly!

See y'all at the meeting.
Kelvin Heath

Norm's Design Page - Wrap Up on Color

This is the last of a series of articles on how we finish our airplanes: color and graphics.

If you were reading along in last month's design page, and suddenly what you thought you were understanding made no sense at all, that was due to a little formatting problem in the newsletter.  In case you want to fit it; an extra sentence and a half which belongs at the "..." at the end of the article found it's way into the end of the paragraph which begins "For example".  No big deal, and I hope this didn't cause anybody to spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the hell I was talking about.

A quick review of last months column:

Consider making or buying a color wheel (you can often find them at art supply stores), then use it when thinking about color choices for your planes.  Keep the various color harmonies in mind:

Color Triads - rotate the equilateral triangle around the axis of the wheel and pick three.
Complementary Contrast (direct & indirect) - pick any color then shoot straight across the axis to the color on the opposite side.
Split Complementary - choose, shoot straight across, then split to both sides of the complement.
Analogous - a group of 2 or 3 hues that are right next to each other on the wheel.
Monochromatic - just 1 hue, but use white and black to make tints and shades.

For those at the last meeting, I hope the demonstration was helpful

There are a lot of factors to consider when putting color on your model.  If it's "scale", you try to imitate the original colors and markings faithfully - adding to the realism, and points, if you compete.  Your ability to mix colors well is ESSENTIAL in order to match existing colors - you must first find the proper hue, then adjust it for both value and intensity.

If your model even resembles an actual aircraft (stand-off scale, etc.), you may want to add to the effect by imitating conventional military or civilian colors.  if a plane is for sport flying, you can just have some fun with the colors (a high contrast scheme perhaps), and the graphics too (flames, checkerboards, stripes images, squiggles, whatever...).  But if your plane has beautiful "lines", meaning the outline of the shapes, the sculptural form of the aircraft, be careful not to detract from the "art" with too much visual clutter.  Keep it simple!

Stunt planes (especially for competition) have additional factors to consider.  Check out the article in Model Aviation August, 03 p. 139. This piece offers an excellent discussion about how our airplanes appear (dynamically) to the judges sitting outside the circle.  Graphics and color affect how your model "reads" against its background, and can even emphasize or mask small flying errors.

Sina kindly offered me a ride to our last meeting, and we talked about paint jobs on stunt planes.  Among the topics, Sina mentioned that he likes the idea of different values for the colors on the op and bottom of the plane (or at least the wings), because it clarifies the maneuvers - overhead eights or the cloverleaf would really show off this effect.  Someone might argue that such contrast could detract from the appearance of smoothness in those maneuvers; Beats me!  I just wish I could do an overhead eight in any recognizable fashion.

Please keep in mind that color is absolutely dependent on the colors around it.  Color is relative/contextual!  It changes, depending on what it's next to.  We all know that a light colored airplane on the ground can look very dark against lush green grass (we artist types call this "complementary contrast"), but the same red looks different against a pale blue sky.  A thin yellow pin stripe on a deep violet wing will really pop out, but use the same violet for a pin stripe on a yellow wing, and it will "read" as simply black.  So, it's also a question of how much of each color we're seeing.  Color power is relative to proportion.

Light affects the way the colors look too.  Unless you have special lamps in your workshop, the colors you test there will appear quite different in sunlight outside.  Whether your finish is flat, satin, or high gloss, also affects how light interacts with the pigments.  A gloss generally makes our planes fly better (less drag), but the richest, most intense, colors are generally flat (not very practical around castor oil, etc).  Florescent colors (a special topic) are sensitive to ultra-violet light; so they really glow at dawn, dusk, and when skies are overcast - filtering the longer wavelengths.

So, there's a lot to think about with all this color stuff.  I certainly don't want to contribute to taking the fun out of our hobby (sport?) by making simple things complicated.  As Bob always says, "It's gotta be FUN!".  So, please don't take any of this too seriously.  As you can see by my own models, I don't!  But if it interests you, and you spend a lot of time working on your finish, it's worth experimenting with those choices for half and hour before committing forty hours to the airplane.  BEST OF LUCK!

Norman Andersen

Editors Notes

Hello everyone, I too would like to thank Norm for the fabulous job with the color wheel demo.  His final points on color and graphics are in the issue.  "Thanks Norman".

With the demo Norman put on it didn't leave us any time to hear about John's ARF Nobler, Wayne's Hughes H-1 racer, Jim's Giles Stunter with removable wings for transporting.  We also never got to hear from Glen with his Fancy Pants and equally fancy incidence meter.  Bring 'em back boys.

Bob