I dont know how you guys manage, but everytime i buy an arf, it comes wrinkle infested. So what do i do? I grab my iron and heat gun and try to smooth it out. THe effect, MORE STUPID WRINKLES! I know that if i apply too much heat, there will be more winkles, but when i apply a "low-heat" setting, nothing happens, for over 5 minutes! Some people say it takes 30 seconds or something like that.... please.... help me!

Thank you very much!

If you want to solve a looseness problem with a heat gun, choose only shrink tubing for electric wire. Pick your fights.

The problem with iron-on covering that develops loose streaks is not that it hasn't been shrunk adequately. The problem is the lack of adhesion between the wood surface and the film. On my models, that usually means I left sanding dust on the wood, or some lubricant got on the wood.

If you can't ignore the wrinkles, peel the covering, prepare the wood properly, and iron on some new covering.

If you can ignore the wrinkles you'll find your ARF experience more enjoyable.

Best wishes,
Dave Olson

wow i never had arf that come that wrinkles then i pick those arf very carefully u may be dealing with the wrong companies.....

More heat should not make more wrinkles. It should shrink the film, or if too much heat, burn a hole in it. This is with a heat gun.

I have good success using my iron. You may need to experiment with different heat levels. Try to get the iron hot enough that the film turns slightly darker when you are going over it with the iron. Keep moving the iron in circles over the wrinkled area until you see it start to tighten up, and then keep moving in circles until it is tight. Then move over to another area.

Also, try one of the TopFlite heat mitts so that you can use your other hand to apply pressure and help smooth the heated film at the same time you moving the hot iron over it.

I've never seen so many wrinkles on any Arf I have received. I would use the heat gun. It will get rid of the wrinkles. You may need to poke with a pin if it looks like its puffing up. The real secret is to heat up enough to shrink it and not enough to blow a hole. Some of the covering including Monokote gets a pink hue when it is a good temperature. Too little heat will mean it will wrinkle right up again because it did not shrink.
It does not have to adhere to the wood. If you leave the seams stuck then you can shrink all the rest of it. If you heat up the seams too much it will pull away from the seam and loosen up again and even uncover the wood, so stay away from the seams as much as possible.

the companies in china that manufacture these arfs do not apply covering like you or i would do ,..like if you were building a kit. they cut the covering from templates and then apply it to the model. they then seal the seams and then the model is run thru a heat oven to shrink the covering . the adhesive on the covering does not adhere to the wood. once the adhesive kicks off from the heat it most of the time will not kick off again when a heat gun is applied per their instructions. i have several arfs and only one had a decent covering job and that was a sig somthin extra. i also have two planes i built from kits several years ago. when i covered them i brushed on the wood "balsarite" for film covering on both and and made sure the covering was put on tight when i applied it. . the covering on both planes is still sealed and drum tight. out in the sun they get a few wrinkles but nothing like a lot of my arfs. coverings coming loose and lots of wrinkles is the most common gripes about arfs. i guess this is the price we pay if we do not want to build kits.

Russell, I hope you speak with authority because it has always been my opinion that the covering is applied as you said. I get a new ARF, let it sit in the garage for a week, or month and when I open the box - wrinkles are all over the place. If I open the kit as soon as it arrives - it looks PERFECT.....the only variable is the garage (it ONLY get up to the triple digits 7 months a year!)

I was de-wrinkling a new ARF today and I thought of your first post.

Your heat gun setting is TOO LOW.

That's right too low.

It's almost there but not quite high enough.

As a result you are getting partial de-adhesion, but you are not getting the shrinkage that accompanies a slighter increase in heat.

This just makes things worst when the covering cools.



Use an adjustable gun and set it a bit higher.

Then make small 2" "circles" over a small area on the covering.

The existing wrinkles should start to join up into larger bubbles that should start smoothing out.

As the heat is increased you may see a SLIGHT discoloration of the covering ( It will return to normal once it cools off ). At this point the covering will begin to shrink and the bubbles will smooth out even more.

When this happens widen the area a bit. You want the surrounding covering also to shrink and pull at the material you are working on. Keep moving the gun constantly and move onto the surrounding areas.

If you find that you get a large bubble which you simply cannot get rid of, poke a pin hole or six in it. These will disappear later.


My covering initially started to look just like yours ( hence I recalled your post ) but since I've done this so many times I just turned up the heat a bit and 15 minutes later I had finished the entire plane.


You do need to be careful as different covering has different heat tolerance.

China-Cote seems to need slightly more heat than Monokote or Ultrakote, but be careful. If you go a bit too far it will start pulling away again.

alright, so i used the highest setting on my iron to remove the wrinkles, and it did just what you ugys said it would do. All the wrinkles formed a giant bubble and went away, for it a little bit. A few minutes later, a few big wrinkles would show up (of course, it looks much better than it did before). What should i do to get rid of those last few wrinkles?

Poke pinholes into the large bubbles then reheat.

If it is still problematic, use a covering glove ( or in a pinch any cloth ) to smooth this area down while it is hot.

This why a lot of us just rip the factory covering off and put what we want we want on it. I have to say I have never seen wrinkling that bad before.

I believe that he ended up actually creating them as his gun was a little too cool.

It does seem that he has managed to fix the problem though.

im kinda on and off with these ARF's. IT will be a few hours before i actually get working again removing those few wrinkles. But i got it now, THANKS ALOT GUYS!

"I believe that he ended up actually creating them as his gun was a little too cool. " <- The picture is before i created them with my heat gun.

i have once . i had a sportsman aviation sonic 500 arf.. it sat in the sun for a few hours and all kinds of wrinkles came up in the wing. they would not come out!!. i tried everything!.. they looked like blisters other than wrinkles. i still fly it but it looks like crap!.

Ouch!

That plane was sitting in an area that is completely the opposite from the conditions where it was made.

sheeesh.......[&o]

Yeah, it probably sat baking in a warehouse for a few weeks, then cooling off at night causing the initial wrinkles.

While it may have been put together in a factory with higher humidity and temperature.

Post a pic of your final work if you can.

Congratulations, I can see this is a 4*40 ARF. Ask me how I can tell. OK, I'll tell you. It looks exactly like the one I am just completing. It had so many wrinkles that the wrinkles had wrinkles. The way to take care of this problem WITHOUT recovering is to spend many hours over many days carefully heating up the covering using your gun or iron/w sock or detail iron and the rubbing down the area with an old white sock. You will need to do this many times over many days over long periods of time. I bought my ARF Last October and I am just now satisfied that my wrinkling problem is under control (but who knows!) I am now hoping to apply the supplied vinyl decals. If I do apply them and my covering loosens up again, it will be most difficult to shrink the covering. Aerokote's workability is around 220-230 degrees. Get yourself a thermometer and test the heat temperature you are using and do not make it too hot. Areokote is not Monokote! Take your time. No one believed my wrinkle problem either until I showed them. I could have built a kit with the time I spent on this ARF.

I've had some ARFs that are bad...but I think you "win." If you use a heat gun set it fairly high (mine will catch paper on fire if I leave it for a second.) You need to start from the center of a panel and "push" the bubbles out to the tips. Work in parallel with the wrinkles. Start at one end and run your heat gun up the entire wrinkle until it goes away. Then go back to the center of the panel and do it for the next wrinkle. After I get them mostly out with the heat gun I then go to the iron and make sure all the film is reattached to the surface, this also helps to get any small wrinkles out or winkles that reformed.

My 90 sized extra was pretty bad (about 75% of what yours is like), and to do the entire plane to a wrinkle free finish took me about 3 hours. I've been flying it since Christmas and they haven't come back.

Jared

Once you get the hang of doing all of this, and have learned the idiosyncracies of the different materials, you can do an ARF fairly quickly. The time involved drops fairly fast.

I did a China-Kote one last night in about 30 minutes.

The first one I did many moons ago, I swear took me all evening, and I was no where as successful as I am now with this stuff.

ALL GONE! I guess my technique is to warm it up with an iron and then wipe the giant bubble smooth with a damp cool cloth. None so far! Cant wait to get started on the tiger.