Hey, RW,
How goes it? Ryan and I are going to run to Des Moines for part of a contest Sunday. Expecting a windy afternoon.

Gee, dope..Man that is a subject of great debate. But here are some things that I think will always work pretty well.

Brodak dope is the way to go unless you can get Randolph aircraft dope (same stuff, only can be bought cheaper).

Some really good camel hair brushes. Lots of fine sandpaper. Yellow-back 3M auto body sandpaper is the class of the act.

Silkspan is still really popular and easy to get . Another good option is Polyspan, a synthetic dress lining that Tom Morris sells. The only cautions are that it doesn't go around curves easily and it fuzzes up a lot if you sand into it. But incredibly strong stuff. Maybe 10x stronger thatn silkspan? Just put plenty of coats of dope on it before you try to sand it. A few guys still use silk, but it tends to be expensive. There is a place in California called Thai Silks that sells nice material and a lot cheaper than SIG, though.

Basically you sand the airframe smooth and apply 3-4 coats of dope around the edges. Lay the silkspan on a towel and wet it good with a sprayer. Lay it in place (grain span-wise), pull it snug, and use thinner or 90-10 thinner-dope brushed through the 'span to stick it down. Might need to rub it down a little to make it stick. Use fine sandpaper to trim the edges after it's dry.

Brush on a dry first coat or two to seal the tissue. Then spray or brush until happy with it. Wet sand if you want it really slick.

A lot of guys are spraying dope or auto paint with the low-price HVLP sprayers from Harbor Freight. I have one, but haven't had the weather to get it out and try it yet. But a decent quick job is to apply a dope base and finish with spray can Rustoleum from the hardware store. A pretty nice finish for not a lot of work.

But go over to Stuka Stunt and search around. There is a ton of good material over there on finishing., including dope, auto paint Rustoleum, epoxy, PolyCrylic and silkspan, Japanese tissue, etc. I just barely scratched the surface. Sure is fun when a paint finish turns out nice.

See you later,
Kelvin