an interesting waste of time

andrew wrote:More stuff --



Blushing: If you paint/spray in high humidity, the dope may blush or develop whitish areas. This is due to moisture being trapped in he actual dope. The volatiles gas off before the moisture evaporates and the surface skins over, trapping the moisture. This can usually be removed by spraying or painting with thinner -- dope has an unsual property that it will dissolve when thinner is used. Blush should only be treated on a very dry day to help disperse the water before skinning again. The advantage is that a top coat will dissolve the underlying coat and the bond is very strong.

Orange peel: Surface coat looks pitted, like the surface of an orange. Usually caused by the coat being too thick, the dope surface hardens before all the volatiles gas off. As the solvents continue to evaporate, you end with microscopic pits in the topcoat. Thin light coats are not as prone to orange peel effects

andrew

My dad had a wooden boat and we once used a varnish from Calahan's that was marketed under the name "Chiltered". The idea was that you put the can of varnish in a bucket of shave ice to chill it. That way the volatiles could gas off before the skin formed, thus yielding a glass like finish. Turned out you could do the same with pretty much any varnish.

Some other few things to consider

You keep leaning toward monocoat and that is fine but remeber nitro fuel will find EVERY nook and cranny and once soaked under the mono it will release the adheasive and be very hard to glue back down. There are techniques to reduce this but they are not entirely successful

Many old timers who converted to shrink poly coverings still seal and fill the balsa and give the entire plane a good seal coat paying attention to cavities and firewalls (thinned epoxy is fairly fuel proof)

Dope thiner is a combination of MEK and other aromatic volitiles and they produce a wicked bad headache and the smell lingers a long time in a house

Nitro or butyrate dopes all have the same volitiles in them and as they evaporate release a large amount of noxious fumes...not to be done in an enclosed environment

60-90Degrees F and under 50% humidity is hard to find outside where I am so I have to be patient about when to dope a plane

Hot fuel will NOT debond CA or epoxy but can deteriorate tightbond or other alphetic resin type wood glues

I have built several slab /plank 1/2A balsa and finished with hardware store clear laquer for several coats over thined epoxy fuel proofed fire wall ( a little bit of rubbing alcohol will thin two part 30 min epoxy to make it flow well enough to brush on lightly like paint)

If you are crafty (pun intended) you can cover 90% of each slab wing with mono coat or similar and lightly sand the open edge near the wing root with 200 or finer grit (very light sanding just to make the dope stick), mask off the mono coat and dope the fuselage and all the compound curves and save a bunch of labor and (I think fairly expensive) dope

On your first plane just have fun experiment and expect to augger in.... with each new plane you will learn a new trick and eventually you will build the favorite plane in your favorite colors and glass smooth finish

True story...like a few here, I flew compition slow combat with 35 size engines....my Favorite, a Mathis designed Mongoose.... Over time I learned how to make them in batches with styrofoam cored wings...but the very first one was a signature special edition die cut kit and I must have spent 150 hours building the wing to be dead on straight, light, and perfect tight silkspan glass dope finish... Takes a lot of time to do glass smooth with minimum coats as weight is your enemy.

On the first day of compition, during round one, my opponet center slashed my plane and in the dive I had no elevator so the 100MPH screaming hot rodded Fox 35 buried in the grass n dirt about 9 inches as the wing exploded...

I had six other planes and won a new Fox Engine that day but I will never ever devote than much energy to a combat plane again

I had a 60 powered 68 inch wing F4U Corsair with almost 2 years of build and detail work. I had the field expert on military aircraft maiden flight it for me because I was too damend nervous to do the take off roll

GermanBeez wrote:you know, this seems like a LOT of work to invest in one's first plane...i don't
want to sand and paint for a week just to break it somehow the next day. then all my work has gone to bits...
putting monokote on just seems to be the quicker and easier solution.

A traditional "beginner" finish using Butyrate dope is to apply three coats of clear, sanding between coats, then two of color.

You can also apply three coats of clear, sanding only after the first coat, no color...perhaps decals, if a kit.

A less traditional finish is to apply a first coat of water based Polyurethane, sand, then a coat of spray Rustoleum. Use reguler non-metalic colors, the metalics are not fuel-proof. Best fuel-proof if allowed to dry for a week.

I prefer to not use iron-ons.

George

I personally use Hangar 9 Ultracoat for iron-on. It's much more user friendly than all the rest. Follow the sheet intructions that you peel out of the roll.

my .049¢

As an aside, I attended the Paducah, KY flyin yesterday, Saturday --- weather was clear, but cool and very windy, so attendance and flying was down; today may be better, but alas I won't be there.

Usually, there are several C/L flyers there, but only one, Charlie Reeves, had his planes out. Charlie flew with a very well known designer and NAT's champion, the late Lew MacFarland. One of the planes he had set out was a MacFarland design called the Humbler --- later kitted and renamed the Shark. The C/L competitors usually have planes that are absolutely immaculate with beautiful finishes. These are the epitome of dope finishes and his was a classic example -- clean, deep and ultra smooth. The wind kept him on the ground, but seeing a pro level covering and finish job was worth it. George (gcb) may also know Charlie since both were in Lexington, KY at about the same time.

He used the typical nitrate, butyrate, clear top. His second plane was nitrate base, butyrate color and two-part automotive clear coat.

andrew

andrew wrote:As an aside, I attended the Paducah, KY flyin yesterday, Saturday --- weather was clear, but cool and very windy, so attendance and flying was down; today may be better, but alas I won't be there.

Usually, there are several C/L flyers there, but only one, Charlie Reeves, had his planes out. Charlie flew with a very well known designer and NAT's champion, the late Lew MacFarland. One of the planes he had set out was a MacFarland design called the Humbler --- later kitted and renamed the Shark. The C/L competitors usually have planes that are absolutely immaculate with beautiful finishes. These are the epitome of dope finishes and his was a classic example -- clean, deep and ultra smooth. The wind kept him on the ground, but seeing a pro level covering and finish job was worth it. George (gcb) may also know Charlie since both were in Lexington, KY at about the same time.

He used the typical nitrate, butyrate, clear top. His second plane was nitrate base, butyrate color and two-part automotive clear coat.

andrew

Is THIS the Shark in question?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Charlie is a great guy! He retrieved and babysat my camera gear after I left it on the field during one of my "Absent" moments!

Kim wrote:
Is THIS the Shark in question?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Charlie is a great guy! He retrieved and babysat my camera gear after I left it on the field during one of my "Absent" moments!

Kim --

That's it!! The India ink details were outstanding on that aircraft. Glad you got a picture to show here.

Wish we had been able to cross paths at the flyin -- the weather seemed to be a little more cooperative.

Do you recall if a large blue Corsair was flown today? Andy and Ed were going to be there. The Corsair had a reduction gear gas engine and sliding canopy. Andy may have also been flying one or more helicopters -- he is also one of the top heli pilots in this area.

andrew

Hey Andrew!

Didn't get to Paducah today...was on the job, herding airplanes at the Cape Girardeau airport. Looks like my next week's schedule is gonna be locked as tight as the last two. Also gonna have to duck the Brotherhood of The Ring (Sterling Ringmaster Forum) for a while...this weekend was the International Ringmaster Fly-A-Thon...and I couldn't get mine finished in time.

After next week, I'm SERIOUSLY going to try to get to Paducah and put my membership to work...or at least turn some circles here! All of my models are Aerogloss or Brodak Dope finished silkspan with some Monokote here and there, but they still tolerate me somewhat! I came into all this with stinky, expensive paint and fiberous paper...and am going out that way!

Retro Kim

This concludes my hijack of rusty's thread !

andrew wrote:... George (gcb) may also know Charlie since both were in Lexington, KY at about the same time.

He used the typical nitrate, butyrate, clear top. His second plane was nitrate base, butyrate color and two-part automotive clear coat.

andrew

andrew,

I don't believe I know Charlie. Lexington was pretty big, even in those days. There were small groups of flyers all around Lexington. One task that Lew McFarland took on was to organize these small groups into the Lexington Model Airplane Club (LMAC).

Four months after graduating high school I joined the Navy so I did not get to meet most of the Lexington flyers.

I did get to see the original Humbler when it was in the sanding stage. I was on leave and was at Lew's hobby shop.

Of the guys I used to fly with, only two are left. One lives in Colorado and the other gave up flying.

George

Edit: Forgot to mention, some of the two part finishes are toxic so make sure you use the filter mask called for in the paint instructions. Some think it's worth the trouble because automotive top coats are fuel proof and protect those magnificent, yet laborous finishes. Charlie's Humbler is a fine example.

Thinking about ordering up some Ulracoat "parklite" covering for a new project. anyone use this stuff?,,the Parklite in particular?

1.07oz per square yard, 13 microns thick. Can still heavier than a fiberous paper type of covering, but much more resistant to gorilla hands at the field who might try to lend help.