pmagall

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Who have any experience with this?

I was thinking of covering my GWS tiger moth body, with white glue (glue for wood) mixed with a lot of water and soft paper, then applying this to the foam. Should give a smooth surface to sand if need, and then painting it.
I also don’t know if the weight will increase substantially.

Please, this is the first time i do this, what do you all think about it??
any help or idea is welcome !!!

Paulo
(Porto,Portugal)

piedpiper

My first time too but it seems ok so far. I found a product called balsaloc and it is water based heat seal adhesive and dries fairly quickly. I applied it with a steril q-tip since they are very tightly woven. I have used coverlight material and stick it onto the foam with a heat iron at the temp recommended on the package. This material is a polyester fiber and quite tough and not easily torn but it will stretch with heat and manipulation. I did this to protect the foam on my wattage Mirage 2000. Very little weigh increase so far but only doing the fuesalage to create an exoskeleton to help hold the nose section onto the fuselage. Next I hope to apply a very thin coating of epoxy clear finish to strengthen the fuselage further with an epoxy exoskeleton. This is where the weight may increase on this model. However I do not plan to cover any of the wings or verticle rudder. They are already molded with a smooth skin and not necessarily in need of covering. I also use a monocote small footed trim iron for inside the tight spots.

I like your white glue idea and balsaloc looks like very dilute white glue.

Even low setting on the monocote trim iron is still hot enough to melt styrofoam so go lightly and quickly and you can make the coverlight stick. I think this can work for you. I have also found that it is best to cover things with carefully precut coverite to make it less unweildy. You will need a small trim scissor susch as fiskars micro tip to trim off excess covering or to cut it ahead of time for a more precise preheat size.Text

ballgunner

My Feedback: (1)

The most important part of your question is weight. The Tiger Moth has a notoriously weak structure. If you can strengthen it you should but always keeping weight in mind. Most foamies have adequate strength for their design but not all. At least white glue won't eat the foam.