Hi! I just finished building and sanding my Dumas 17" Citabria free flight kit. Now it's time to cover.

I have NO clue how to cover with tissue!!![>:]

PS. Yay! No Crooked Fuse!

PS. I didn't need a leading edge or trailing edge sander. Used a good ol' piece of scrap balsa with a strip of 150 grit glued onto it.

PS. CA is SO MUCH BETTER THAN USING an ACETONE BASED GLUE LIKE DUCO.

PS. Do I have a CA allergy? My right eye likes to water when I use CA.

THANKS!!

Yub, tissue can be a PITA. I would cut pieces that are a little big so you have edges to work with. Then use clear dope around the edges to seal and stick the tissue down. Be sure that you have the tissue stretched tight. Let it dry. Then use more dope to seal and tighten the tissue. You could use a brush to put it on. A little goes a long way so be careful how much you use. If you are using white tissue. You can use coloured dope to shrink with. Be careful at your overlaps to not bunch it up. Doping tissue is an art. Take your time. It will take a few times to get the hang of it. I have been moderately successful with it.

Eyes watering with CA fumes is normal. However it can be a sign of early indications of alergy. I am an ashmatic, been all my life, so I am very sensative to CA. You MUST be aware of your body when using it. Pay attention to how you are breating. Any tightness in your chest or any restrictions in breathing are dead give aways. Sense your skin, especially your face. If your skin gets itchy or feels weird, stop immediatly. If you start to feel the need to sneeze suddenly or your eyes get tight and you are tearing up unusually, stop.

Any change in your bopdy could be an indication of an alergy. I use it sparingly now. Only in applications where I really need it. I also use a ceiling fan above me to blow the fumes away. Try to work away from the fumes as much as posible. Limit your total exposure as much as possible. And just be careful, and you should be fine.

Good luck with your plane. And congratulations on trying something different.

Mark Shuman

Mark gave some good advice both about the tissue and CA.

I would like to suggest the you make up a frame with some scrap balsa and try on that first and after you get the hang of it, then do it on the model.
I have not done the tissue thing for many years, but I seem to remember spraying the tissue with water so it is damp, not dripping wet and that makes it more flexible and easier to work with. Brush dope around the edges and the tissue will get a bit tighter as the water dries. The dope still sticks it down event with the tissue geing damp.

Phil in MN[8D]

Good point Phil. I forgot about the water. It will expand the tissue some and help shrink the tissue on. You have to work fairly fast. And Phil's suggestion on the frame is a real good idea. You should have some spare wood laying around. Give it a whirl.

Mark Shuman

Tissue covering? Wow that's a flashback to the 60's.

Start by sealing the structure with a few coats of dope, thinned 50% dope 50% thinner. Sand lightly with 400 grit. Dampen the tissue with a fine mist spray bottle and flatten it on a smooth table, no it'll never lay completley smooth. Use the capalary attraction of the water to stick the tissue on the structure. Cover each section with a separate piece of tissue, I.E. bottom wing left one piece, top wing left 2nd piece, etc.

Carefully smooth out the wrinkles, patience is important here as tissue wrinkles easily. Dope the tissue edges to glue it down. Overlap slightly as you lay down the next piece of tissue. If it drys and it's not perfect, paint more dope or straight thinner and carefully lift as the fresh dope loosens the dry dope.

Once it's completley covered, thin some dope 80% thinner and 20% dope. Using a soft wide brush dope the tissue lightly holding it UPSIDE DOWN! Any dope that bleeds through the tissue will now be on the outside and you can wipe off runs with the brush dampened in thinner. Only do one side at a time and allow it to dry. The next coat apply thinned 50/50. Once it's sealed you no longer have to hold it upside down. Apply enough coats that the surface is sealed. If this is a glow powered plane, apply at least 10 coats thinned. Other power just seal the tissue and decorate using colored dope.

Enjoy, a good tissue job is a work of art.

You have a mix of really good and really bad information here. One of the tricks of tissue covering is to use a glue stick to stick the tissue down around the edges. (I use dope, myself, but others have told me the gluestick method is easier.) Get the tissue on the body and wings down as tight and wrinkle free as you can. Then spray the tissue with water or water and rubbing alcohol 50/50 mix. The water will make the issue shrink. The 50/50 mix will make it shrink less. The problem here is that too much shrink can warp things into pretzels. On the tail surfaces, make a frame and glue a large piece of tissue to it and water shrink it. Now use this tissue to cover the tail surfaces and do not shrink it any more. If you are going to dope, get Sig Litecoat clear and thin it way down 50/50 or more. Do the wings alternate panels top and bottom to keep it from warping. Best not to dope the tail, but if you do. be very careful, or you'll get the tissue stuck together in the center of the open spaces. There is a Krylon spray that is for protecting posters, etc. A lot of people use this, very lightly, on rubber powered models, instead of dope.

Jim (Incidentally, I have never built a successful rubber powered model[])

I have completed my first tissue covered Sig Cabinaire but use a slightly different method. I first build the kit and sanded all the edges to make a nice finished airframe. I then use clear Sig dope / thinner (75/25) mixture and applied several coats to the entire airframe. Letting each coat dry completely (30 mins), sanded with 800 grit paper and applied the second and 3rd coats the same way. Each time taking more care to nooks and crannies that would show up after each application. I then let everything set up over night. Next I applied the tissue with no water but taking care to keep it as smooth and tight as possible. I laid down the tissue cut to fit with a 1/8!QUOT! to 3/16!QUOT! overlap. I then used 100% thinner to activate the dope that was applied to the airframe. Applied 1 coat of dope / thinner mix 25/50 to seal every thing. Then final application of dope / thinner 50/50 to tighten everything. The tail was very tricky so be careful. The model won !QUOT!Model of the Month!QUOT! at my local club meeting. I really enjoyed building it and learned a lot about tissue covering. I hope I helped.


The only thing I didn't learn was my second stick and tissue plane is a F4U Corsair. I failed to learn that only the clear dope has the tightening power for tissue. I covered everything like before but with a colored dope. I need help with my next step; do I remove all the covering and reapply the colored tissue with clear only or is there another method I could use.

Now I need help!!!! []

A lot of good advice here. When applying the tissue, you want to glue it down ONLY around the outside edges until it is dry. For example, when doing a wing, dope the tissue down only on the LE, TE, and inboard and outboard ribs, not the ones in the middle. I prefer to let the water dry on the tissue first, then seal with dope. When you apply the sealing coats, the tissue should adhere to the center structure then.
Also, on a FF model, I would use colored dope sparingly, it is heavier than clear and a bit of weight makes a big difference on the small FF models.
FWIW, I still haven't been able to get as nice a covering job with plastic film as I could with dope and tissue. Guess I need more practice !

A lot of rubber flyers have gone to rubbing alcohol for shrinking tissue on the idea it doesn't weaken the tissue as much as a water spray will and also doesn't expand the tissue as much.

I've used the thinned dope, glue stick, thinned white glue, and even BalsaLoc successfully.

Flying Models magazine gives quite a bit of information in it's Free Flite columns, and may even have some books available on building and covering stick and tissue models.

The Flying Aces club is also a good source of info.

Yub- If its not too late, figure which direction the tissue 'grain' runs. You can do this by ripping a small tear near a corner. Grain direction will tear smooth. cross grain will be jagged. Apply the tissue with the grain running span wise, on the fuse, length wise. You may have to do the wing tips seperately. Jim

Larry Kruse has made a video: "How to cover models with Japanese tissue". And Don Ross's book "Rubber Powered Model Airplanes" has a chapter on covering techniques. Both are available from www.hrunway.com/