I think I stirred the pot just fine, thank you. I hate to say this, but I've been covering longer than MinnFlyer. I am honest enough to say that I have been known to make covering/finishing mistakes in Monokote, Coverite, silk&dope, Oracover, Ultracote, fiberglass, and silkspan. Forgive me if I left anything out that I have used before. I'm absolutely certain that if I have used it, I have screwed it up at least once.

It seems that the more attention I pay to finishing, the better the finish. This applies to the amount of haste, also. The faster I go, the more mistakes I get. I don't care who you are, sometimes you are going to encounter "Murphy's Law"

Given my personal choices, the painted finish over a glassed product will always have the superior appearance to any other covering, equal job to equal job. But how much work do you really want to put into one of these things?

Regarding ARF's to hand built. Personally, I just can't see me being exactly the same as everyone else at the field. I LIKE my individuality. Plus I get to build the plane the way I want it to fly from the beginning. There is no need for major modifications to a kit previously completed by someone else.

By the way, if you use the soap and water method to apply layers of covering over each other, be sure to use a low temp setting on your iron to set the covering after the layers have dried. It's really embarrasing to see all your different color layers fly off the plane on it's first flight. It usually happens when you let the covering sit out in the sun to bond them to the bottom layers.

Thanks to the guy who started this post. It's been most enjoyable.

Silversurfer