I have covered my first kit, Sig LT 40. Its white monocoat and I want to add red sunburst to top wing for effect. Whats the pros and con of using monocoat as trim instead of self sticking decal tape. Which would be better.

As long as the adhesive on the self sticking decal tape will hold up against fuel and engine exhaust then I say go ahead and use it. I have used many different letters/numbers/graphics etc., sometimes they stay on and sometimes they don't. If you use the Monokote trim sheet, you can bet it will stay. Just my $.02 worth.

The only con to using MK on top of MK is keeping the bubbles out. What I do is to place the trim in place and trace it with a pencil, or outline it with tape, then remove the trim piece and poke about 3 bazillion holes where the trim is going to be. That will allow the air and gasses to escape underneith. Keep your holes 1/8 - 1/4" from the edges.

You can also wet down the area with soapy water, or Windex, or the like. Position the piece of trim where you want it, and use a squeegee to work out the water and bubbles. Let it dry and you're golden.

The wet area also allows you to easily position the trim without worrying about it sticking down prematurely.

Once it's dried, it's on there.

If it gets exposed to raw fuel, you may wish to seal the edges to prevent the fuel from dissolving the adhesive.

If you don't mind losing a few brain cells, you could use the trim solvent Top Flite makes for just such an application. Once it dries, it's permanent (bonds the two). You use a soft cloth or paper towel to squeeze out bubbles once it's in place, let it dry and you're done.

Soapy water works, but is not permanent (unless you hit it with an iron afterwards, but it may bubble). This method has the big advantage of being "adjustable" when wet.

When it's all done, I like to seal the trim with clear gloss (I like Aerogloss which of course is fuel proof) if the edges of the trim lies on a high traffic area (like the leading edges where your hand likes to grab). And sometimes I do it to blend the edges together.

I would suggest using the top flite wood pecker tool. My LT-40 is pearl white with metallic red stripes, and I had very little bubbling, as I poked 1000 holes into the white first. You can do this with t pins, but the woodpecker makes it much faster.

I use the windex method with a twist. Once the trim piece is down in place, you can use a credit card, or something made of hard plastic like that, to squigee out the excess windex. Let dry for about 24 hours. Then, useing a fine detail type paint brush, use trim solvent, and just paint a thin line around the edge of your trim pieces. The color in monokote, is in the adheasive, so you do not need much. Some will most likely bleed out if you are putting a dark color on top of a light color, don't worry about it. Let it dry for about 24 hours then put a small amount of the solvent on a clean cloth to clean off any that bleeds. Your done. I read about this technique here on rc universe, and have tried it on 2 planes and have not had a problem with any seperation. I have run about 6 or 7 gal. of fuel thru one of them. BTW there is no need to poke holes in your base covering, and there will be no air bubbles. One more little hint is if you need to touch up something small you can use the paint brush and solvent, swirl the brush around on a scrap piece of monokote the right color and voila instant matching touch up paint. Good luck, happy flying. Garry

Please clarify for a newbie/ignoramus:

You can use Windex to pre-position Monokote trim pieces on top of Monokote base colours?

Hi David: Yes this is true and works quite well. However I do not know how well this works on large pieces. The biggest pieces I have done this with are approx 12" x 4" But no signs of lifting so far. Happy flying Garry

Try two color covering article in RC flight unlimited http://webpages.charter.net/rcfu/

Thanks for the tip, soaking the monocoat down with windex and taking out the air bubbles works great. I did it last night and applied low heat tonight and is was as smooth as glass. I had one or two bubbles because I got the heat too much at first but it really looks good. I applied trim tape to the leading edge in black tonight and that was a pain. Next time I'll use mono all the way. Thanks
Rick

I've spent alot of time pondering this but poking holes in mk is down right scary. Does this work where the mk is over sheeting over framing? I bought some mk solvent think about trimming with it but when you lay it down you better have it where you want it!

I did the windex thing and it worked out very well. If you want to what you can really do with a plane check out " mac daddy" on your seach engine in the photo gallery. This is what he does using trim solvent.

My wing trim came out really well. I was trying to make the distinction of top and bottom. Next time I will put a lot more thought in it.

I use the same technique as Sir Crashalot. It works well. Once I finish the whole model, I carefully wipe it down with acetone. This makes the Monokote sparkle. Then I give it a coat of Turtle Wax.

When I clean up after a day of flying, I wipe the model down with a soft DRY rag, and I DO NOT use any cleaner. The car wax lets me get away with this, and it only takes a minute our two to wipe it down.

About every three weeks I clean the plane again with acetone and re-wax it. (This is a good time to give the plane a good A&E workover too).

The acetone does not mar the finish?

It doesn't hurt Monokote at all. It may damage some of the other types of covering or some types of decals, but it does not hurt Monokote. What it does do is loosen up the adhesive that squeegies out from under the edges of the monokote as you seal it down. This squeezed out adhesive is one of the things that makes covering jobs look messy.

I pour the acetone onto a soft rag and then wipe. Just do a small area at a time and be sure to wipe AWAY from the seams. You will probably notice some smearing at first, especially where you have two colors coming together. This is just the adhesive, not the film. Keep at it and it will come clean.

After you epoxy on the stab and rudder, Acetone will clean up any epoxy that ended up in the wrong place. Also if you dribbled any CA when you hinged the control surfaces, acetone will fix that too.

Acetone also will act as an activator for the adhesive, though not as aggressive as Monokote trim solvent.

Acetone is also a great degreaser. Use it to wipe down the model periodically and it will keep the model looking like new. Note that if you do use the turtle wax, acetone takes it off and you will need to renew it.

How long have you used acetone on a single plane?

I have a couple that are 15 years old...

Firefighter56:

Suggest you do a search for ( termagator ) There are a couple of threads by him here one a waving flag and the other on a waving or flowing checker board useing some of the methods mentioned here primarly windex and squeege. both very interesting and well explained.


Egor