I have a problem. I always try to redo monokote on my planes, but I always fail. I only have the iron, so I just go to the center temp setting, and try to get wrinkles out. They just end up geting more wrinkles and shrinking! I have a spitfire that is in dire need of coating but I'm too afraid to coat it! Can someone teach me how to monokote correctly so I have no wrinkles or bad spots?

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RCU member MinnFlyer has done some great how-to articles and videos on covering. check them out as they will go a long way to getting you started.</p>

[link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/article_display.cfm?article_id=67] Minnflyer Covering how-to [/link]</p>

[link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/article_display.cfm?article_id=726] Minnflyer, Another Look at Covering[/link]</p></font>

If you are going to recover, try using Ultracoat. You'll be amazed at the difference.

So there is a difference between monokote and ultrakote?

Ultracote will shrink a lot more than monokote. I would suggest that you use Ultracote. If you are trying to shrink your monokote with just the heating iron, you may have to turn up the heat. Just don't lay the iron on the monokote. Just skim it along the top.

+1 for Ultracote. Vastly easier to apply and remove those wrinkles from. Monokote lost a lot of it's usability after the "formula" was changed due to regulations, but even then Ultracote was easier to apply than the old Monokote. Use Ultracote.

If i choose not to coat my own airplanes, who can i ask or send my plane to so they can coat my plane? just in case?

Do you belong to a club? If so, ask one of the members, they might even show you how. No club, try the LHS in your area. Or, take a deep breath and do it yourself. Might be easier than you think.

You can get a heat gun for around $20+ with shipping, it would really be worth the twenty bucks. Beautiful smooth and drumtight covering jobs. WELL WORTH IT.
http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXL498&P=7

And I always prefer to use Ultracote or Coverite material instead of the Monocrap. So much smoother and easier to apply.

Ultracote is definitely a nice covering but so is Monokote. You can get excellent results with Monokote if applied properly. Watch the videos that RCKen mentioned and practive, practice, practice. You'll catch on.

Both Monokote and Ultracoat are great covering materials. Although they both require a little bit different techniques. Many people prefer Ultracoat but that doesn't mean it's better than Monokote, just different. For people that are getting started Ultracoat is a bit easier to apply, but that doesn't mean you can't get good results with Monokote. As a side note my covering of preference is Monokote, but that's just me.

However, regardless of the choice in your materials you are going to have a very hard time getting good results without a heat gun. It's not impossible to do without one, but it's going to take a lot of work and a lot of patience to do it without the heat gun. You would be much better off investing in one to cover with.

Ken

Yes, I would say dont go out of your way to get ultracote if you already have monokote. I prefer Monokote just because it is less of a hassle to apply and looks better when finnished. just my opinion

I have been covering for a long time, love it!! I went over to Ultra after Mono had to make changes and it became hit and miss if you were going to get a color that wpuld shrink or not. I have taught one student how to cover using Ultra with only an iron, for the 20 bucks for a heat gun it is just way more work then I really want to do, get the heat gun!!
I still use Mono but only for my trim using the windex to lay it down. I haven't watched Mikes vedio on covering in a while but I think he showed the windex trick?? I really need to watch it again, it's one of the better video's on covering. I try to get my students to watch it if they are goingto try to cover a plane for the first time.

Mike doesn't show how to use windex for laying down monokote in his How-to's. But you can find that info here:

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<a href="http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_603331/anchors_603331/mpage_1/key_flag/anchor/tm.htm#603331">Applying monokote with Windex.
</a>

Ken
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As a side note, in one of Minn's covering videos he says "if this were monokote that wrinkle would be there forever", since it's not, a little heat took it out ( I think he's using Ultra in the videos). I chose to use Ultracote after watching those videos because I saw no reason to make my first few covering jobs any more difficult. As it turned out it was much much easier than my imagination made it out to be. On the few planes I've "Ultra'ed" I didn't have to redo a single part and was extremely pleased with it (not a single wrinkle and tight as a drum...on my first two attempts/planes), so much so that when I choose to cover a plane with shrink material I'll only use Ultracote (or it's variants).

The best tip I ever got was to start cool and move up. Use the lowest heat setting you can use to get the covering to stick, and barely tack it down all around. Then stick it with that cool iron from middle to outside, pulling up your tacks as needed to keep it pulled tight. Fix mistakes and big wrinkles as you go. Get it stuck down as tight and wrinkle free as you can, then shrink it with the heat gun or by hovering a hot iron over the covering without really touching it, then finally stick it down better with a slightly hotter iron than you used to initially stick it. The last step is going over the seams with the iron right near shrinking heat so that they are sealed well.

Essentially, there are three temps for your iron- tacking, sticking, and shrinking in that order.

Reading your statement, I am not quite certain what you mean. Are you talking about taking wrinkles out of the covering in new ARF planes that you have acquited? If so, you need to realize that many ARF's use neither Ultracote nor Monokote, but other no-name brands with different properties. You may want to be more descriptive about what your are trying to do.

I sucked at covering with the plastic films so I switched to fabric.  I am covering my second plane now with Sig Koverall fabric and I have no seams that show any where and the skin is drum tight.  It requires a whole differant approach as you also have to paint the fabric.  Just something to consider.