I've read where marker ink adds very little (if any) weight to boost gliders. Competition flyers will color the underside of their glider wings so they can be seen against the sky.
The kit face card shows a dusting "blend" of spray paint.
TIP: Blending spray paints (two color blends) will end up with a rough finish and higher drag. You can't really sand and smooth two blended colors with sandpaper or polish.
Before doing any marker ink "bands" on the underside of the blades, I tested markers on the leftover balsa sheet. As expected, there was some bleed of the ink down the wood grain.
I'll have to use an Ultra Fine Point Sharpie.
I planned a pattern on paper before any ink was applied.
These markings could help with tracking and recovery.
The blades were set directly above the marking template. My trusty 2" machine square helped draw lines perpendicular to the blade.
The ultra fine point Sharpie gave the sharpest lines with very little ink bleed.
Notice the marks inside the squares to be colored. When you get rolling, it's easy to color in the wrong box.
Draw the box sides with the smallest pen then switch to the medium point pen to fill in the space.
Here's the underside of the blades after all three have been marked.
With any luck, during descent the spinning blades will show circles in different widths from narrow to wide.
It might occur to some folks to use a light clearcoat to try to "fix" the marker ink and to act as a waterproofing measure, there is the risk of more bleeding. Furthermore the interaction between the marker inks and the clearcoat isn't always predictable, so you don't always know what will happen until you try it out. Water-based marker ink will usually bleed if you use a water-based clearcoat, and permanent markers tend to bleed with solvent-based clearcoat (though there are some exceptions). Water-based inks may or may not bleed with solvent-based clearcoat. Also, when you get bleeding, some of the colours may separate.
ReplyDeleteHi Naoto,
DeleteLooking back, I should have gave it a very light clear coat on the underside of the blades before the markers were used. I didn't think about that until now.