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Old 01-18-2005 | 11:05 PM
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campbec
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From: South West Rocks N.S.W., AUSTRALIA
Default RE: i need help to cover my plane!

Hi,

For the purpose of this reply I will assume that you are covering using a plastic shrinkable film with heat activated adhesive.

You will need at minimum a covering iron, a number of sharp hobby knife blades or similar, a straight edge, a good sharp pair of scissors and masking tape.

Check you have sanded the surfaces to cover as smooth as possible. Then sand again. Use a vacuum cleaner or air gun to remove the dust and then follow up with a tac-rag.

Cut the pieces of covering about 50mm larger than the surface to be covered. Set your iron to the covering manufacturers recommended heat or experiment with scraps until you get the temperature correct.

Tack the covering, (having removed the backing) adhesive side down at the centre of one end just pulling tight enough to remove wrinkles and work end to end corner to corner, (a bit like the sequence of tightening the nuts on a vehicle's wheel). Then seal the edges down. On the fuselage do the bottom and rear first working from bottom to top and rear to front. On the wing do the bottom surface first followed by the top. Once you have sealed the film down turn the heat on the iron up and shrink the plastic tight, (a heat gun makes this part easier). Care is needed not to burn a hole in the covering.

There are many threads on covering including some illustrating the covering sequence. Some covering products show the sequence on their labels/info sheet.

There are also many other ways to cover and finish a model. LOL!

Cheers,

Colin