It has been a lot of years since I used silk and dope, but as I remember it, we got it wet with water, layed it over the frame work, used dope to stick it down around the edges and when the water dried, it shrank up nice and tight, we never used heat to shrink it, it was not needed. Back in the 60s, we even mixed Amboid glue with the Aero Gloss clear dope for the stick it down coat. Caused it to stick very well.

John