Good day! Today we're going to do something fun! In five simple steps, I'm going to show you how to
customize your micro FPV frame with hydrographic film. That's right, we're going to hydro dip micro
FPV frames! In fact, we're going to hydro dip two different micro FPV frames the three to four inch
Diamondback Rattler micro FPV frame and the two and a half to three inch Pygmy Rattler micro FPV
frame. We'll hydro dip each with a different film pattern representative of the Diamondback
and the Pygmy rattlesnakes. I'll briefly explain the five simple steps show you the few materials
I use and then walk through a short demo of how to hydro dip your micro FPV frame. Somewhere in
this video I'll also have a little surprise for you too. So make sure to watch the whole thing,
give it a thumbs up below, and subscribe to your TMac FPV channel - your home for your journey to
better FPV fun, flights, and racing stuff! First we're going to hydro dip our three to four inch
Diamondback Rattler micro FPV frame. This is the two and a half millimeter thick base plate version
which is the same one I used on our micro long range FPV drone build the Rattler XF
for extended flights. In fact, with a 4s lipo (not even a lithium ion battery),
I was able to get over 17 minutes of flight time from it. Anyway, here's what she looks like
unassembled in its standard form before applying hydro dipping and here's what the Diamondback
Rattler Micro FPV frame looks like assembled in its standard form before hydro dipping.
if you're interested in learning more about this frame, its features and versatility along with
its overall design, make sure to check out this video on micro FPV frame Diamondback Rattler.
Our hydro dipping process is going to consist of five steps. The first step
is to prep the frame for a base coat of paint by sanding it lightly - just enough
to get the glossy look off of the carbon fiber. I'm going to use a sanding sponge
which I picked up at my local hardware store. You'll want to do this in a well ventilated
area like outside and I'd recommend wearing some sort of a mask so you don't breathe in any carbon
fibers which could be hazardous to your health. In the second step we're going to apply a base
coat of paint to the frame which the hydrographic film will adhere to. If your hydrographic film is
transparent in areas you're going to want to pick out a color for your base coat that looks good
showing through the pattern of your hydrographic film. For the Diamondback Rattler micro FPV frame,
I'm going to use this deep grayish paint and primer from my local hardware store since
its color matches up nicely with the film I'll be using on our Diamondback Rattler micro FPV frame.
Our third step is where I'm going to actually dip the Diamondback Rattler micro FPV frame
with this gold and black rattlesnake hydrographic film from DipDemon. See how
this is transparent? You can see my hand through it. That's why I wanted to use this deep beige
or what they call grayish color. It matches up nicely with the hydro dip film.
I found this film from DipDemon online and they've got a ton of different hydrographic film designs
After I've dipped it in our fourth step I'm going to rinse it off with
a fine spray of water until there's no more suds or residue running off of it.
The water will actually start to become clear instead of a milky white and that only takes
a few minutes. Ffinally, in our fifth and final step, I'm going to apply a clear top coat to it
using this Transtar 6213 Jammin' Clear high gloss acrylic from O'Reilly's auto parts,
JB tools, Walmart, or Amazon through a link in the video description below. We'll go through
all five steps with the Diamondback Rattler micro FPV frame first and then we'll do the same with
the Pygmy Rattler micro FPV frame but we're going to use a different color base coat and a different
hydrographic film design to more closely resemble that of a pygmy rattlesnake. Okay,
let's start prepping the frame for its base coat. Now I just want to scuff this up enough to get
this glossy look off the base plate. Now you don't have to do both sides of it if you don't want to.
If you only want to do the part that's visible after your build's complete, that's up to you.
The sponge makes it pretty easy.
For this one, I'm going to do both sides. That should be good. See the dust that comes off in
your hands? That's what you don't want to be breathing. It might make sense to wear some
gloves and this is also the reason I've got the isopropyl alcohol. Wwe're gonna use some of this
to wipe this down
get some of the dust off of it.
All right now we just need to do the top plate. Set this aside. See
the difference between the two sides now?
All right we should be good to go. Now we're ready for the primer. All right now it's time to apply
our base coat to our micro FPV frame. I've used my wife's non-stick parchment paper and laid that
out and put the micro frame on top of that so that when I apply the base coat the frame won't stick
to whatever it's laying on. You can probably also use some wax
paper. We didn't have any of that so I'm just using the parchment paper.
So I'll apply the base coat of this deep grayish primer to one side, let it dry,
flip it over and then apply it to the other side. Just want to apply light coats.
I think this color is going to look good for the golden black Diamondback pattern.
Remember for the Pygmy Rattler we're going to use a different base coat and a different pattern.
All right I think that looks pretty good for this side. We'll let it dry, flip it over,
do the other side. All right it's been about 30 minutes so let's see if this is dry to the touch.
The paper is dry.
Seems like the primer is dry. This says it dries in 25 minutes or less.
We let it sit for about 30. See if it sticks to the paper.
Not too bad.
We're good. All right, flip it over
from the other side.
That looks good. Let that dry and our next step is hydro dip.
All right now that we've got our base coat on both our base plate and our top plate,
we'll do the base plate first, it's time to dip our frame into the hydrographic film. To do that
we need to cut a piece of the film that's just a little bit wider on each side of the frame
than the actual frame size. Sso we'll overlay the hydrographic film
onto the frame and we want to cut a piece that's about that much bigger - that much wider
than the outside of the frame on all sides. The reason we're going to do that
is we'll need to place some masking tape over the film on all four sides
of the piece that we cut. The reason we need to do that is the film is going to lay flat in
a tub of water and then we're going to spray it with this activation spray to activate the
hydrographic film. Once the film is activated, it tends to spread out and if we don't have a frame
or a border of masking tape on all four sides it'll actually spread out
to the point where it dissipates and you won't be able to dip the frame into anything. So,
we're going to put a border of masking tape around the piece of hydrographic film that we cut one to
two inches wider than the actual frame itself. So what I want to do is I want to look for the
type of pattern here that I want to cut on our Rattler frame. I think that looks good
right about there. It's a little bit wider down here at the back end than on the side
but that's okay. So at this point what I want to do is I would just want to cut the piece . . .
(it's almost like cutting Christmas wrapping paper if you've ever done that)
like that. Now we've got a piece of hydrographic film that we can put
a border of masking tape around. Now there's a certain side of this hydrographic film that
needs to go face down in the water and that's the sticky side of it. In order to find out which side
is sticky, since they both basically almost feel the same, is just lick your fingertips and then
press it on the corner of the film and you'll see that one side sticks. It's that sticky side that
we want facing down. Then I want to overlay this and then I'll go ahead and make the border with
our masking tape. You want to make this as flat as possible trying to reduce the number of wrinkles
in it. Now when we do it like this we're going to have both the sticky side of the hydrographic film
facing down and we're going to have the sticky side of the masking tape facing down in the
water. There we have our border of masking tape around the hydrographic film which is going to
sit in the water. We'll dip the frame (the base plate) down at an angle through the
hydrographic film after we've applied the activator spray. I'm going to go ahead and
do the same thing for the top plate and it's the same process so I'm just not going to show doing
the same thing for the top plate for this video just to save time. So now we can pull this up.
Now we're ready to lay this face down into the bucket of warm water for dipping. All
right now it's time to dip the frame and I'm going to demonstrate the process by doing one
side of the base plate. I filled this yellow bin up with warm water. It's not scalding hot.
It's warmer than room temperature. Now we're going to lay the film flat on top of the water
being careful not to get water on top of the film and also what we want to try and do is
keep any bubbles from forming underneath. It's okay if they do, but if they do we can either
blow on top of the film to push the bubbles out from underneath or actually use our fingers to
gently push them out from underneath. The way we want to try and keep bubbles from
forming underneath the film is by putting the center of the film down first if at all
possible. So we're going to try and bow the film in the center and lay it down like this.
See, there's a bubble underneath there already. Push that out.
There we go, and ideally what . . . here's a bubble here.
I need to push this bubble out.
Got it! We want to leave this in here for about 45 to 60 seconds before we apply the activator.
We're applying the activator.
Now I'm going to dip the base plate in
using these needle nose pliers at a 45 degree angle as much as possible.
That's what she looks like now. Looks pretty good. Looks like a good snakeskin
pattern. We've got some residue on there so we need to take her outside
and rinse her off with a fine spray using the garden hose. Let's go ahead and do that
now. We're going to rinse the residue off with a fine mist.
You can see in the upper left motor hole there's like a milky white substance.
You're just going to rinse it off until everything becomes clear. You don't want to use the pressure
to remove the residue you want to use the water flow. You can already see the water in that
upper left motor hole is getting more clear. That might actually be good now.
Nice looking snake skin Diamondback Rattler! Now we let her dry and then we do the same process
for the other side and also both sides of the top plate. Okay, we've hydro dipped both sides of our
Diamondback Rattler micro FPV frame. Now it's time for our last step where we apply the clear coat.
Besides making the frame look good, the clear coat also is what adds durability to the hydrographic
film. The durability of your final film results is going to depend on the quality of the clear
coat you use. This Transtar Jammin' Clear I'm using is a high quality 1k clear coat
so our final results on both the Diamondback Rattler and the upcoming Pygmy Rattler
are going to be extremely durable. Let's do it. All right I'll be using this Jammin' Clear 6213
clear coat. Since we've already got the hydrographic film on both sides, I don't want to
take the chance of laying it flat on a surface and applying this clear coat and having it stick to
the surface and then peeling off the hydrographic film. So, I've come up with a way to hang it from
one of the holes at the back and that way I can spray both sides without worrying about
the base plate sticking to the parchment or the wax paper and peeling off the hydrographic film.
Do the other side.
and we'll let that dry. I'll probably apply another coat, let that dry, and then we'll put
it together and see what she looks like. All right now I'm going to hydro dip the Pygmy Rattler micro
FPV frame and if you'd like to learn more about this Pygmy Rattler frame, check out this video
titled Micro FPV Drone Build (Pygmy Rattler!) linked in the video description below.
Since the process is the same, I'm not going to be doing it again for the Pygmy Rattler.
The only differences for the Pygmy Rattler are I'll be using this Rust-Oleum gray primer
and this Pygmy rattlesnake skin hydrographic film instead of the Diamondback Rattler skin.
So let's take a look at the finished
results.
Okay, here's both the Diamondback Rattler and the Pygmy Rattler micro FPV frames. Ii think they
look great! By the way, I'm giving one of these away - your choice! All you have to do is be a
subscriber of your TMac FPV channel, like this video by hitting the "thumbs up" button below,
and put one and only one comment in the comment section letting me know what you like about
these designs and which one you'd like to get by using the word "Diamondback Rattler"
or "Pygmy Rattler." I'll announce the winner on Friday, November 6th
through my pinned comment in this video below. If you'd like to order one of these micro FPV frames,
go to the FPV Pilot's Den Page of my tmacfpv.com site. Hope to chat with you soon and I'll see
you next video. Until then, stay safe, Journey to Better and clear skies friend!