propjobbill

Dave Brown Skyloft sold by Tower hobbies http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXB896&P=M I am thinking of buying some of this material for covering. If you have tried it would you please let me know what your thoughts are about it. Things like how easy is it to work with. How strong is it, What you do and don't like about it.

Thanks for the help

woodbutcher

A buddy of mine tried it and he thought it sucked. The "weave" is too open and irregular. It looks like cambric cloth that is used on the bottom of furniture to keep dust out, which is probably what it is. It seemed impossible to fill the weave.
I like Koverall.

Mr_Ed

I've used Skyloft a couple of times. Didn't think it was too bad. It's very strong, easy to work with and produced a very good covering job. But, as was said, it took a lot of dope to fill the weave. I use silk and butyrate dope almost exclusively, but try other types of fabric on occasion. Wouldn't be against using Skyloft again if I didn't mind taking the time to fill the weave. As I recall, it took 9 coats of thinned clear butyrate dope before all the pin holes were filled. Maybe this would be a good place for sanding sealer or the homemade version using talc mixed into the clear dope.

Let us know what you decide to do.

Mr_Ed

buzzard bait

Hi, I'm the buddy. It was not only ridiculously hard to fill, it was also HEAVY. I weighed it on a gram scale and could hardly believe it--Koverall is lighter.

The other problem was that you can't control shrinkage. You put it on wet and hope for the best. It warped the end ribs on my Stingray.

Koverall is SO much better. I like Polyspan too. It is very light, looks like silkspan, fills easily, and heat shrinks. Koverall goes around compound curves better.

Jim