RE: Questions about Monokote
The 1.87 oz for Ceconite refers to the weight per square yard of material. That's not too bad. if you choose a Ceconite fabric covering it would make the model look more accurate in scale, but it also involves more work than the films do. It shrinks on the structure like the application of film, but with one exception, all the shrinking is done with an iron, not a heat gun. In covering full size aircraft no one ever uses a heat gun because you can not accurately control the shrinkage as you can with an iron. Use of the a heat gun on Ceconite will warp the structure by getting the fabric tighter in certain areas of the structure. Use an iron!
Ceconite requires the application of a cement to attach the fabric edges to the structure. You could use dope, but it needs to dry before you start to shrink the fabric. After shrinking then you need to dope the fabric to seal the weave to prepare the fabric for the color coats. You could do the job with two coats, one clear and then one pigmented (colored)dope, but you will see the fabric weave quite well. To be truthful, that's not how a real Cub or Champ looks, the finish does not show as much grain of fabric. To get that look requires several coats of dope, but that adds weight, and that's the enemy here. Suggestions is that if you want a fabric finished look, take a good look at the Coverite material at www. coverite.com. or some other similar fabric material made especially for model aircraft.
I'm sure that there are other modelers in Baiting Hollow, NY that know how to apply covering. My suggestion is to ask for some first hand help if you need it.