The OH-XEA Snoopy fuselage covering

Lauantai 8.11.2025 - Tuesday Club member


Suomeksi

Before the Tuesday Club’s summer break, we had attached the covering fabrics on the Snoopy’s fuselage upper and lower surfaces and on both sides of the cockpit. We couldn’t have covered more at the time because we had run out of the covering fabric we used. However, we had time to start the tightening lacquering on the fuselage upper and lower covering.

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After the beginning of the autumn season we found a solution for continuing the Snoopy’s fuselage covering, because a bolt of fabric was found at the Finnish Aviation Museum and we got the use of it. We made the standard tightening test with nitrocellulose lacquer by attaching the fabric to a test frame. The test was started with water tightening, advancing by stages to 25%, 50%, 75% to full 100 % lacquer. The result of our testing was that the fabric seemed to be suitable for continuing the Snoopy’s fuselage covering.

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The covering of the Snoopy’s sides was started by making a cardboard template of the sides. According to them, pieces of fabric were cut off for the covering of the sides. The pieces of fabric, cut to form, were attached to the frame of the fuselage with contact glue. The fabric was first glued from its upper edge to the frame tube of the fuselage. After this the fabric was glued from its lower edge to the frame tube, stretching it from the hem at the same time. This way the fabric was made tentatively tight to wait for the water tightening and the subsequent tightening with nitrocellulose lacquer.

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After the glue had dried at the seams, the pieces of fabric were water tightened, i.e. soaked with boiled water. After the fabric had dried, the tightening process with nitrocellulose lacquer was started. We began with 25% lacquer and now we have progressed to 50% and 75% lacquer. As the lacquer we used NC-Speed nitro lacquer, tinted with iron oxide. Simultaneously the tightening lacquering of the fuselage lower and upper surfaces, and the cockpit walls have been continued.

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As the lacquering of the Snoopy’s sides proceeded, we noticed to our dismay that the tightening of the side fabric wasn’t even. The warp of the fabric had tightened better vertically than horizontally. The consequence being that a waviness was to be seen in the fabric. This new fabric wasn’t as well tightening as we had observed in the test we made. To be honest, we noticed that after 50% of lacquering, the waviness had diminished but not entirely vanished. It is unlikely that we will try to acquire a new better fabric to re-cover the Snoopy’s sides.

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We still had to fabric the cockpit door and the floor of the cockpit and the bottom of the nose section. Cardboard templates were once again made of the above mentioned, and the right size pieces of fabric were cut off. The fabric was identical to the fabric used to the fuselage sides. We, however, believed the fabric will tighten enough in small areas. Again, we attached the fabric rims to the fuselage metal structure with contact glue.

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The door with windows was covered up to the window opening, which will be cut open only after the fabric has been finally tightened with tightening lacquer, and the fabric glued to the door’s window frame. The cockpit door and the cockpit fabric and the fabric of the nose section lower part have now received two applications of 25% NC-Speed nitrocellulose lacquer, after the initial water tightening. The tightening of the covering fabric seems to be promising.

Photos: Lassi Karivalo

Translation to English: Matti Liuskallio

Avainsanat: aviation history, restoration, Tuesday Club, Hietanen HEA-23b, OH-XEA, "Ressu"