Has anybody ever made a dragchute for a plane, i would like to make one, thought about ‘paper mash’ but you would see all the over laps and would look crap or can you buy them ! any ideas would be welcome…ian [8D]
Try a piece of tissue paper. The kind used for wrapping gifts works best since it isn’t so “Fuzzy”. Mix some white carpenter’s glue with water so it is very thin and “Paint” the tissue with it. Get it into the position you want before the glue dries. Afterwards you can spray it with clear gloss, flat clear, or paint it as desired.
I did one, (never again) for a diorama I built about thirty years ago. I used tissue paper cut into circles. I used a light bulb for a jig and glued the tissue paper together. For the risers I used tissue paper wrapped around brass rod. For chute cord I used brass rod glued to the main canopy. I painted the main canopy yellow and added a lot of weathering to dirty it up. I had to add extra weight to the nose of the aircraft to keep it from setting on the drag chute. The chute was stiff enough to keep it from touching the runway. After several months it would start to sag and I would have to bend it back in position.
Here’s an idea. Not sure how well it would work but my wife uses this method when she’s making dessert bowls made from chocolate. She takes a small balloon and inflates it to the desired size. She then dips the end in the melted chocolate and then, after the chocolate has hardened, she slowly deflates the balloon with a pin. That leaves only the bowl-shaped chocolate behind. Could the same thing be done with, say, a balloon and tissue paper with the white glue mixture? Perhaps the tissue could be layered onto the inflated balloon, left to dry, deflate the balloon, then trim the hardened tissue to the desired size and shape?
Just a thought,
Eric