What do I do with this covering job?
 

As indicated in my other posts, I just got myself a Reactor Bipe 61. While inspecting through the kit I noticed that the wing tips on the lower wing are not finished properly. Please see the attached images. This problem is present on all the wing tips but the lower RHS one has the max problem.

Actually, it was much worse than thos images. There was actually a fold in the orange part of the covering. To get rid of the wrinkles, I used a sealing iron. First I ran it over all the monokote directly in contact with the wooden parts all around the area and further still to ensure that the monokote will not pull off the remianing areas when I try to shrink the wrinkles. Then, finally I applied the tip of the shoe to force the monokote to shrink. I was able to get rid of the fold but not the wrinkles even with the iron set to high heat. As you can see the wrinkling is still there quite a bit. Also, you can see the wood start to be seen in the stiffning part of the aileron so I dare not apply any more heat with the iron just there. What can I do in this regard? I dont have a heat gun but I do have a hair drier, so should I apply the hair drier's nozzle close to the wrinkled area and try to remove the wrinkles? In the first place, will this extent of wrinkling go away? On my earlier airplanes with the same Topflite covering the hair-drier has worked, it simply takes more time

Or should I write to GP and ask them for a solution? From my country, shipping the wing back for inspection is out of the question, the shipping may cost more than the price of a new wing.

Ameyam

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

I would send them the pictures, they very well my send you new. Worth a try.

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

I would preferably like to finish the issue at my level if possible.

Inspite of that, I will be sending the email to GP with the pictures and the text above tomorrow after I look through the upper wing and fuse and try to get the wrinkles out of them if required. Actually, I didnt finish looking through the entire kit, just noticed the problem in the bottom wing being more acute so I would like to collate all the pictures in one email to GP

In the meantime, anything else I can try? Not sure that GP will be willing to bear the replacement courier costs

Ameyam

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

Heat gun.

A hair dryer won't get hot enough to shrink Monokote and an iron won't handle open bays like that.

With temperature cycles Monokote just acts weird like that. When I run out, Ill never buy another roll.

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

On my Reactor 46, I have ofter got "dents" in the covering where the monokote got pressed against something and it made a mark without making a hole. In that case, the hair-drier does a good job of shrinking it out. It also works when used on shrink-tubes for servo connectors, just takes longer. In any case, I dont have too many options before I write to GP so I will try.

Ameyam

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

I would use a covering iron to iron the edges - smooth them out and make sure the covering is tacked down. Then use a heat gun to do the rest. Should be a piece of cake, definitely have fixed worse with no issue.

*disclaimer: some of the monokote coming on new GP airplanes seems to not want to shrink, regardless of how much heat you use.

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

HMMMMMMMMMM............I've been covering with Monokote since 1979 and just had to repair a wingtip on my GP Electrostik with Monokote True Red that I just bought not too long ago for repairs on my GP Big Stick 60 and had no troubles. I did try Ultracote a while back and it goes on OK but I don't like the fact that when I take it to the field it sags when it heats up in the sun or the car whereas Monokote does not so with Ultracote I found that I was constantly re-tightening the covering.

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

The Ultra VS Mono debate has been done to death so anyone wanting to read them just do a search, there are bunches of them.
Like Joe mentioned I would iron down the edges good but I wouldn't try a heat gun just yet. Mono can over heat before shrinking and seperate and or pop a hole in it. I would heat my iron up real hot and just run it over the sags and wrinkles without touching the covering with the iron. Mono goes on at a much higher heat then Ultra and doesn't always shrink as well so you may have to keep adding higher temps to the iron until it starts shrinking. If all else fails then you go to the gun but be ready to watch the covering pull away from the edges if you over heat it.

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

Investing in a heat gun would be the best solution. Even if a hair dryer does get it hot enough, the slow heating will make the whole area shrink. The beauty of a heat gun is that it lets you put the heat in the exact spot you want it then pull it away. When I have a wrinkle near an edge like that, I aim the heat gun away from the seam and bring it in very close just for a split second, then pull it away. It gets the covering hot enough to shrink only when I point it, but doesn't ruin the seams. If that doesn't fix it, I stay a split second longer the second time.

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

I already ironed down the edges and did what I could with the iron to try and shrink that covering. Will try the heat gun / hair drier now and hope for the best. I could very easily cutoff the monokote and replace the covering but this is a brand new airplane so I will write to GP and get their view before I do anything drastic

Ameyam

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

I tried to shrink the covering in question. However, I stopped when I noticed the orange trimcote receeding. So I took a look at teh rest of the parts and went over them with the irom. Remaining parts are OK. There is some wrinkling on other wingtips but I can get rid of that with the heat gun later.

So I took the call and wrote to GP. Here are excerpts of the mail with unnecessar details removed

"
Sir,

I have just purchased a GP Reactor Bipe 61 from Tower. The invoice details are as under:

Invoice Number: xxxxxxx
Invoice Date: 31-10-10

I had it couriered it here in India and received it on Thursday, 4-11-10. Upon inspecting the parts, I found that there is a lot of wrinkling on the covering on all the wingtips. Knowing that ARFs will have some wrinkling, I used a sealing iron to try to get rid of it. The attached "before" pictures are after I used the iron. The technique I used was to first iron down the covering all over the wooden parts before I tried to shrink the folds. I was able to get rid of a lot of the folding but not all of it. Next day, I tried to use a hair-drier to shrink it further. Af you can see in the "after" pictures, the orange part of the covering trim has actually started to receed but the folding is still there and it wont go away.

I am including pictures of all the wing tips that have the same problem to some extent. Please tell me what to do in this regard. Please note that shipping the parts back for inspection is out of question as the courier charges will be actually more than the cost of the part.

"

I am posting the "after" pictures for everyone to take a look at

Ameyam

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

More pics

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

Let us know what GPhas to say.

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

That airplane has travelled from somewhere on the pacific asian rim all the way to warehouses in North America and then turned around and shipped around the world agine to India. A wooden airframe is a living and breathing thing subject to constant change.

Who knows how many climate changes it has suffered through. Wrinkling is a direct result of a truly globel economy and its going to happen. Even if Tower or whoever sent you another set of wings its likely they would be similarly wrinkled in the same spots.

Best you first acquire the tools of the trade Which means a proper modeling heat gun that the exhaust temperture can be controlled precisely buy not only by electrical means but also the exhaust fan restrictor and the and the controlable intake apetures.

The reason those wrinkles occur is they have been walked into a corner during initial shrinking sufficiently to disappear. Now after all the horrific climate changes they will start to reappear in areas like that and why it has only occured in that spot on your airplane.

Using a iron or heat gun for that matter you do not want to heat just the wrinkle that will only aggrivate things. What you need to do is to uniformly heat as much of the area around the wrinkle to the sides. This is the only thing that will get rid of a wrinkle that has been walked into a corner. The idea is to have a uniformly heated material in a fan shape all around the wrinkles while the tempeture of the wrinkles themselves remain at a slightly lower tempertures. Yes it is tough in a corner but frequently you can improve things. It is a skill that takes practice so you need to consider every wrinkle you may have delt with successfully just another step in your climb up the skills ladder.

One advantage of Monocoat brand is when it can be heated with a heat gun to a temperature higher than the others and there is a point that when you are working on that last little wrinkel that the most of the colors will at a certain temperature and tension suddenly darken in the hotest area and it is at this point that the most pull will occur and if the wrinkle are going to go away will go after the heat is removed. It is at this point you are very close to burning a hole but removing the heat instantly when the color darkening occurs will prevent that.

These techniques can only happen with the right tools and practice, reading or watching vids are ok but the only thing that will help you acquire the skills is doing it and you are not going to be successful every time at first.

Remember alway attempt to heat a large area around a wrinkle and always attempt to walk a wrinkle towards a long straight edge not a corner.

If the Monocoat brand were to become unavalilble suddenly that would be the only thing that could pressure me back to silk, silkspan, tissue and dope and the so called good old days. If the truth be known they were not all that good ;)

John

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

One tip that helps avoid failure when you're working an open area near a corner...............

Iron down the covering over wood with some pressure. Then let the piece sit for awhile. That area needs to cool before the glue is subjected to tension.

After a sufficient time to cool, use an iron only over the open area. Don't get heat into the solid area while trying to shrink the open area.

The iron's heat can be controlled closely with the dial control. Keep trying with a higher and higher setting. It is often better to use the square, rear of the iron in stead of the pointed front, to get into a corner.

On a recent ARF covered in Monokote by professionals (the Chinese who mfg'd it do it for a living, right) almost every corner that could have a wrinkle like you picture had at least one. Even with my technique, I couldn't get some completely out. Since then, I've passed over buying a couple of ARFs I'd like to have simply because I couldn't see betting the MonoKote was going to be any better on them. Until I want one bad enough to figure recovering into the cost in time and money, I guess I'm just going to keep passing.

FWIW, I've collected a number of the little electric WWI biplanes Tower sells. The 1st had some areas that absolutely would not tighten up. The 2nd was worse. The 3rd was slightly better but the underside wouldn't tighten. It looked like they had lighter monokote on them but knowing the reason they look bad doesn't make them look better. Recently I decided to take another chance and got the Nieuport. It's still in the box and until I have nothing better to work on, and it's raining, and nothing is on TV (which I seldom watch anyway), I might take the time to clean up the shop. Then I might stick it together. Or not.

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

John,

I appreciate the advice you are giving me. But the point here is there is a problem with the finish on a brand new piece of equipment. When I received the model, there was actually a gap in this area between the orange trim cote and the white base cote, so there was a defect in the first place. I use the iron to press the same down and remove the gap. But before doing that, I ironed down all the peripheral areas. This is a open bay in the aileron frame and the monocote is ironed down onto the wood in the surrounding area so I see no point in heating the entire aileron covering.

Secondly with the iron and the heat gun combination I used today, I was able to apply such heat that the orange trim cote has started to pull back from its base location. If, even after that the wrinkles dont go away, they are not going to go if I apply more heat with a heat gun. This type of covering has been used on all the other wing tips as well and they had some occurence of the problem which I was able to satisfactorily resolve with the heat gun. On the elevators, the same problem has not occured even though the construction and size is almost the same. So, I would consider this a bad workmanship issue.

In any case, I have paid good money for the model and I would like to have GP's opinion on this. As I said I could just as easily remove the covering and patch it. But since this is a new airplane, I would let the manufacture opine me first. I guess you would probably also do the same.

Da Rock,

I did just what you said in the morning and yesterday. Now the wing has been sitting for a few hours, I am going to try again. Lets see what can be done

Ameyam

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

having bought 3 Great Planes Super Skybolts, all within 3 months, i can tell you there are huge variables in the covering jobs............ "traveling around the globe" has nothing to do with how it was apllied in the first place. i also don't believe in the ever growing airframe excuse either.

i come from the Free Flight competition scene, and we never had to touch our wings and stabs after being covered.........most planes survive 3-4 years.

of all 3 kits, i could honestly make up 1 kit that had what i would call a workable covering job.
the 2 little Reactor jobs i bought whe those came out were perfect.
the 2 Super Stearmans i bought were above average.

you've done a great job getting most of the sagging out, but for me, it's not good enough.

to be fair to GP though, they (actually Hobbico) replaced 1 stab, 1 fusealage, and 2 wing sets along with several cowls as all the kit cowls had cracks from the Mfg. packing the metal hardware inside the cowls for shipping.

with the pictures you displayed, i will go out on a limb here and say they will probably send you a new wing.

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

Lets hope because I tried again and now I have given up trying to shrink the covering.

Also, this will determine my consideration on purchasing the Reactor 50cc I was considering purchasing next March

Ameyam

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

This is the prime reason I will no longer buy ARF's. I will build my own. Sheet the wing and fiberglass and paint. Still come out at the same weight as "moneycote" and the finish will last for years without having to "shrink covering" on a regular basis anymore. Twenty plus years of covering with that crap and it falls off after a few years or the plastic outer covering comes peeling off. Especially if you fly it a lot. My King was one of my "everyday fliers". Thus having to strip a plane and redo it. I have planes I have been flying for more than six years. I have one over thirty years old I bought five years ago.

I am currently redoing a Sig King Kobra because the covering was peeling off. I had flown it for five years before pulling it out of service because the covering was literally falling off in chunks. It is going to be fiberglassed and painted.

To the OP my condolences. Good luck.

The heat gun designed for covering would be a better choice than a hair dryer. It just works better.

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

Thank you Mr. Summerwind for your suggestion "that traveling around the world has nothing to do with anything" in your attempt to discredit my post its obvious this thread is going to turn into a zoo and a petty game of the dominate poster wins, a game which I will not play.

I stand by every thing in my post earlier in this thread and I apologise for bothering to reply at all. Good day sir.

John

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

Just hold on here, if we argue amongst ourselves, there will be no solution forthcoming.

I agree with John in that "wooden airframe is a living and breathing" in that the wood will change as it ages. But again that means enough time and treatement is not given to the wood to do whatever curing it wants to do. I do accept a bit of sagging due to this effect but not the wrinkling I have seen; that is the effect of improper workmanship

Ameyam

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

John,
i certainly did not try to discredit you. i am simply speaking from experience.
do you know what FF Comp models look like, let alon endure through the riggers of battle in competition?
they are extremely light, precise airframes that rely on geodetic construction, and are subjected to extreme speeds for a short burst of time in which they then settle into a glide for a set duration.
to complicate this they are flown from 20degree weather to 110 degree weather all year long.
they are covered in monokote and never need to be reshrunk during the lifespan.

the excuse that is used to justify sloppy covering jobs on GP ARF's is unacceptable.
Hangar 9 models come out of the box virtually wrinkly free, and they travel just as far as GP models do.
so with that said, i am simply stating my opinion on ''that traveling around the world has nothing to do with anything'' this, which i base on real life experience.

our OP is victim of typical GP crappy covering job period.

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

again, as a Millman being my trade background, this statement only holds true if using uncured wood..............if that's the case, then GP has a lot more to worry about.
wood does expand and contract, but not enough in the size of the Reactor gas bipe to cause that much wrinkling.

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

To the OP- Your experience with the hair dryer should make it clear why we keep recommending a heat gun. As I said in my post above, the heat gun lets you put fast heat in just the right spot so you don't ruin your seams. You've probably used up all the shrink in your covering now, so what you have is as good as it will get.

RE: What do I do with this covering job?
 

i think they should send you a new wing. you payed the full price for it right, then it shouldn't have any issues.