Speed 400
Cloudster Project
I spent some time considering what simple
graphics would look best on the Cloudster wing. The first trim that was put
on the wing was to hide the four covering seams. Where the transparent Red
UltraCote Lite overlaps on these seams, the color is darker. So it required
1/4" white striping tape to adequately conceal these four overlapping
seams as shown below.
When Joe Elgin designed the Cloudster back in
1940, he came up with a dual purpose label that he put on the plans. The
label had the name "Cleveland
Cloudster" encompassed by a cloud representation, but
also served as a label for the modeler to put his name and address as shown
below.
Using Joe's cloud theme and the Speed 400
requirement to show the models name and the design year, I came up with a
similar label only more circular as shown below.
I had two different people make up this label for
me. Albert Pardure produced the label on his computer using an ink jet
printer, which had to be oversprayed with Krylon to set the print. Denny
Melancon, owner of Cajun Graphics, produced the same
identical label as well as my AMA number on vinyl. In the end, I
used Denny's vinyl graphics on the wing as shown below.
This is a close up of the actual vinyl
Cleveland Cloudster label on the
left side of the wing.
Looking ahead, I have everything ready
to airbrush the clear satin Klass Kote on the Cloudster's fuselage, cowl,
fin, and rudder when the temperature gets up into the 70's, which will
be sometime tomorrow afternoon.............................Tandy