Finishing; Prepare The Model For Covering; Balance The Airplane Laterally; Cover Your Model With Monokote - Top Flite Contender User Manual

After allowing the propellant to boil off, use an
airbrush to spray paint the canopy. If the paint is too
thick to spray properly, it can be thinned with a small
amount of lacquer thinner. Do not thin with more
than 40% thinner. In general about 10% thinner will
adequately thin the paint for airbrushing. The paint
can also be brushed on, but brushing will not
produce the high quality finish of spraying.
If you have any doubt about the material you are
painting we suggest that you try painting on a small
piece of leftover material to be sure that you are
satisfied with the end result.

FINISHING

Balance the airplane laterally

1. Before balancing the airplane make sure you have
the engine and all of the radio equipment installed.
2. Mount the wing.
3. With the wing level, carefully lift the model by
the spinner and the lower fin at the aft end of the
fuselage (this may require two people). Do this
several times.
4. If one wing always drops when you lift the model,
that side is heavy. Balance the airplane by gluing
weight inside the other wing tip. Glue the weight in
place with epoxy. An airplane that has been laterally
balanced will track better in most maneuvers.

Prepare the model for covering

1. At this stage, there shouldn't be much left to do.
We've installed the radio system. All the hinge slots
are cut and the control surfaces are all temporarily
connected and the engine is mounted. Now is a good
time to remove the engine and fuelproof the engine
compartment. For fuelproofing, we recommend any
kind of fuelproof model airplane paint or brushing
6-minute epoxy thinned with alcohol into the engine
compartment. Note: You should always fuelproof the
model before you cover it. Otherwise, some types of
paint may soak through the wood and cause
blemishes that may show through the covering.
2. Inspect all surfaces for uneven glue joints and
seams that require filler. Apply filler where needed.
Many small dents or scratches in balsa can be
repaired by applying a few drops of water or
moistening the area with a wet tissue. This will swell
the wood so you can sand it when it dries.
3. Final sand your entire model with progressively
finer grits of sandpaper, finishing with 320 or
400-grit sandpaper.
4. Use a large brush, compressed air or a Top
Flite Tack Cloth (TOPR2185) to remove dust from
the model.

Cover your model with MonoKote

It is assumed that you are an intermediate modeler, so
we won't go into many details on covering techniques,
but here are some tips you should consider:
1. DO NOT attempt to cut the covering material after
it has been applied to the fin and stab, except
around the leading and trailing edges. Modelers who
do this often cut through the covering and part-way
into the balsa stab. This can weaken the stab to the
point where it may fail in flight!
2. Use a Top Flite Hot Sock ™
covering iron to minimize dents in the wood from
your covering iron. You'll probably go through one or
two socks by the time you finish covering your
Contender. The Top Flite MonoKote Trim Seal Tool
is highly recommended for this model.
3. Some modelers have three irons going at once:
one on high heat without a Hot Sock for stretching
the covering around curves like wing tips; one on
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medium heat with a Hot Sock for bonding the
covering to large sheeted areas like the wing ; and a
Trim Iron for small areas.
4. Areas that require an extraordinary amount of
shrinking (such as the bottom of the fuse at the front)
can be successfully shrunk tight with a heat gun.
Use a glove to avoid burning you fingers.
5. When covering smaller parts with square edges
such as the elevators and ailerons, cover the ends
first with separate pieces of covering. Then, all you
have to do is wrap the covering around the top and
bottom and iron it down.
6. One method we like to use is to "pre-cut" the
covering when possible to accurately fit the part,
leaving "handles" in curved areas like the dorsal fin
and the tip of the wing. Cover the main surface of the
part and the straight lines of the leading and trailing
edges first. Hold onto the handles as you heat the
covering and wrap it around. Cut the handles off
when you're done. You can use this method for the
wing and stab too.

Covering sequence

Fuse
1. Cover the cowl in pieces. One for the left side
of the lower 1/2 of the scoop, one for the right
side of the lower 1/2 of the scoop and one for
the front of the scoop. Cut another piece for the
for your Top Flite left side upper half of the cowl and one for the
right side upper half of the cowl.
2. Aft fuse bottom
3. Forward fuse bottom
4. One fuse side, then the other (with the two
halves joining in the middle of the top)
5. Bottom, then top of elevators
6. Rudder
7. Stab bottoms, then stab tops
8. Fin