I gotta have the butterfly paint-job! Any suggestions on the lightest way to do it??

From : Don Stackhouse

Are you sure you really want to do this? You need to be seriously masochistic to attempt the scale "Monarch" paint scheme. You may want to consider getting some professional counseling before this gets out of hand! Oh, well, if you're REALLY sure you want to do this..... :-)

Finish the the wing and tail with 2 coats of clear Varathane or equivalent, just enough to seal the wood. Tint the upper surfaces with orange, darker towards the leading edge, lighter towards the trailing edge. Do the same thing on the lower surfaces using yellow. Darken the leading edges and tips with red on top and orange on the bottom, fading smoothly into the base color by about 5 - 10% chord at the root and about 20% chord at the tip. On the first ones I fogged-on some 21st Century spray paint for the tinting, but I've since found that you can tint Varathane with that water-base acrylic paint that Tamiya sells for painting lexan r/c car bodies. Use about 1 to 2 parts paint to 10 parts Varathane.

The model will look very nice as is at this point (although not visible enough yet against a bright sky), but now comes the really time-consuming part.

Add the black lines. I used permanent felt-tip markers on the 3 of these I've done so far, but I'm planning to experiment with stencils and/or airbrushes next time to save time and weight (you will use up about 5 of the fat, large size markers on one model !). The design uses the patterns of the fore-wing of the real butterfly on the wing, and the hind-wing patterns on the tail. Study the photo carefully until you understand the patterns made by the lines. Note also how the patterns are distorted at places like the tip of the trailing edge. Make sure you fully understand this step; if you make a mistake with the black you will not be able to correct it by painting it over! Just to be sure, make a tracing of the wing planform and tail on paper, and practice drawing the design on that first!

Start by making a line along the upper surface trailing edge about 3/16"(5mm) wide, leave a space about 3/8"(10mm) wide, a 1/8"(3mm) black line, a 3/8"(10mm) space, and another 3/16"(5mm) black line. Remember to follow the curve of the trailing edge at the tip.

Put a 3/16"(5mm) line along the leading edge, and another one from the leading edge at the root tapering back linearly from the leading edge to about 3/4"(20mm) aft of it at the tip. These will form the leading and trailing boundaries of the white spots. There are 3 white spots on each wing at the leading edge near the panel break, and 10 pairs plus one single spot (at the inboard end) along the trailing edge of each wing. All other openings are the base colors. You will paint the white spots last, but note at this time how the ends of the white spots are aligned with the edges of the black lines and black patches. The inboard end of the outermost white spot on the leading edge is about 1/4"(7mm) outboard of the panel break. The "V" shaped black patch around it straddles the panel break, about 1/3 of it on the inboard panel and 2/3 on the outboard panel at the leading edge. Fill in the rest of the black lines and patches, doing their outlines first, then filling in the patches. Add the radii in the corners last.

Paint the white spots with flat white paint. I use the water-base acrylic that Tamiya sells for painting the Lexan bodies of r/c cars. White pen-type or brush on correction fluid for typewriters will also work (over here it's called "Liquid Paper"). Flat white actually gives a brighter and more uniform reflection in bright sunlight than gloss white does.

The underside of the wing is the same as the top, except that the black lines and patches are slightly thinner and less pronounced, and of course the base colors are lighter.

The tail is done in similar fashion to the wing. Note that the white spots are in pairs starting from the ones at the leading edge corner of the tip, around the tip, and along the trailing edge. The underside is the same except less pronounced, just like the wing.

Paint the fuselage gloss black. The Monarch is designed for competition, and most of the serious competition pilots over here don't paint their fuselages. We deliberately don't use any kind of gellcoat on the fuselage, it would just add a lot of un-necessary weight. Unfortunately, this also means pinholes! You will need to use lightweight spackle and primer to fill the pinholes before the black paint. This means you will also add a significant amount of weight to the tail, which means even more weight in the nose. Take the case off of your receiver, cut the mounting tabs off of your servos, leave the switch out (just plug the battery directly into the receiver), and get the entire radio installation ahead of the leading edge. You will still probably have to add some lead to the nose; mine needed about 7 grams. Altogether this paint scheme will probably cost you about 15 - 20 grams, and about that many additional hours if you don't make any mistakes.

Now comes the hard part: finding the courage to fly it now that you've invested all that work in it! The other pitfall is that models with this paint scheme have a very short life span - they are in great demand for display at trade shows, etc., and tend to get retired early as a result of shipping damage and miscellaneous "hangar rash". My original '93 is now a permanent "wall flower" in my shop at home thanks to this. Are you STILL sure you want to do this?

BTW, you can see a nice color photo of one of the ones I did on the NSP web page, and on the DARTS club web page, both listed in our "links" section.

Good Luck (you'll need it) !
Please don't hesitate to call or e-mail if you have any questions.

Don Stackhouse