Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

Rick stubbs came out for a visit last month and gave me a roll of the Chinakote covering from Hobby King to try out on my summer build. I thought it would be nice to give an opinion on the stuff. Too early to say much yet but because I cover the control surfaces with the one sheet used for the main covering I have to do a bit of preliminary work first but I have a good idea of the temps already. I cover the areas that may show up first thing then attach the controls before I do the main covering so that is done on this wing half. I decided to do one half first then set the wing out in the sun to see if the covering will wrinkle or sag. If it does then no reason to use it here in Vegas, it gets to 115 or 120 during times in the summer.
Anyway, the strips are done and the hinges are glued in, tonight I will glue on the ailerons and tomorrow I will try covering the open bay wing.
The covering goes on at the same temp as Ultrakote and irons down just the same. I ran some test strips to see how well it holds to the balsa, every bit as well. So far the only thing I don't care for is the amount of static in it. The backing is just like Mono but when you remove it, both the backing and covering wants to cling to your arms.
If that's the only negative I find with it then big woop!!! If it holds up to the heat and sun then I may be changing from Ultra to this covering.
Gene

52larry52

My Feedback: (1)

Gray Beard, I just completed my first experience with Hobby King covering and found it to be quite good. One of our club members needed a small, fully assembled, electric profile model recovered and I agreed to bail him out (another no skill ARF'er)!!! He supplied the white Hobby King covering and promised to let me do it on my schedule and not "done me" on it. The plane had been hung up in a tree for some time before recovery and the wood had begun to deteriorate and should have been scraped but I pushed on anyway. Seems these favors are never as simple and easy as presented by the requester. In addition to the questionable wood condition there were many damaged joints and broken parts, ribs, leading edges etc. So, a bottle of thin CA later it was ready for covering. With all the control surfaces already hinged I started by doing all the nooks between the movable surfaces and the fuselage/flight surfaces joints like you would with an assembled kit model. All good, but time consuming. After that it was time for the major large surface areas that would then begin to look like something. Being a cheap electric ARF the structure was on the weak side so I had to be gentle with the iron, plus remember the questionable wood condition, so as to not break it as I covered it. I couldn't pull to hard to stretch the material as I ironed it down so I had more wrinkles than normal, but when I shrunk it they were 100% gone and it looked good. Had I been using Monocrap It would have been a "wrinkle city" disaster! I think it even shrunk up better than Ultrakote. My feeling was it is even a lower temp covering than Ultrakote as I attempted to do a silver canopy area with Ultrakote and had trouble with the two coverings liking different temps. I ended up doing a canopy area using some blue Towerkote and they worked well together. I also did find some flawed bad areas in the covering as it came off the roll, so watch out for that. Over all it was good stuff for the money but not as high quality as Ultrakote. I would use it again sometime. Good luck with your project

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

What can I say, GOOD STUFF!!When I got to the wing tip I had the usual wrinkles so I tried to see if they would go away with the heat gun like Ultra. Well yes they do and unlike Mono the Chinakote will take some heat without blowing a hole in it. Not much in the way of wrinkles during the covering job, it's very easy to work with.

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

Covering the controls with one piece of covering is easy. With a sharp blade I just sliced the two ends along the edges, pulled the aileron down all the way, ran the iron along the TE then the LE of the aileron. Keeping the aileron held down I just ironed the covering over the aileron. I installed the servo then used the heat gun to shrink any of the sags out of the wing. It took me an hour and five minutes to cover the one side. The wing half is now out in the sun to see what happens? It's only going to get into the 70s so I don't expect much. Later I will test this stuff to see if ammonia will activate the glue like mono? Then I will start covering the other side. This covering tends to look more like a gloss paint instead of plastic. Wrinkles over the wing pop right out with ease.

52larry52

My Feedback: (1)

OK, I can't resist....."nice tips man"!!! Don't think I ever said that to a man before. All joking aside, it's looking good. Did you find a lot of very small surface flaws in the covering? Sort of like little micro slits, bigger than scratches but not thru the material. On your second photo of the wingtip I thought I could see some where the light was reflecting off the covering. When the covering job is completed please give us your opinion comparing it to Ultrakote as to quality of finished product. I am also interested to here if the Windex method works with this stuff. The one I just did was returned to the owner "ghost white" with no trim colors other than the blue canopy area that was ironed on so I never tried the Windex deal. Looks in the photos like your using regular yellow, not cub yellow.

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

I used the heat gun to remove the bad wrinkle on the wing tip but at the time of the photo I hadn't shrunk the rest of the covering so you can see some slight wrinkles towards the TE. All the wrinkles pulled right out but just like mono or ultra the wrinkle goes away but it does crack the color so you can see where it was located. I had also wrinkled the covering before I ever started to put it on when I tried to remove the backing, lot of static doesn't quite cover it. Other then that I haven't seen any flaws in the covering at all. You will get a mark or line wherever you had some CA glue but it's the same story with any other covering. It took about an hour to completely cover the top of the wing. Last couple of planes I have built were glassed and painted so it's been a while sense I have used real covering.
Your question about the ammonia made an old man get up again right after sitting down with a nice cold barley pop but I had forgot to test out the ammonia trick so I went back out and fired up a test strip. No go, nada, zip, zero!!! Like Ultra ammonia has no effect on the glue backing. Looks like mono has a monopoly on that one.
Rick Stubbs of the Up-Roar build fame started testing this covering last month on his Roar thread. He only tried a small area so far. He and Cliff, daddyoh57 drove here for a visit last month. Cliff from Calif. and Rick from Texas. That's a story in itself, FUN!! Rick brought me a BIG roll of this covering to try out on my Prime Cut +20 build. The roll should be enough to do the complete plane. The color is bright yellow I think. It's close enough to be a match for the Ultra and Mono yellow. I keep looking for the flaws or weak spots in the covering but as of yet I haven't seen any. Nothing strange about it though, I usually only see them in the Mono covering.
So far I can't tell any difference between this covering and Ultra. It's a true pleasure to work with. Once I figured out how to remove the backing without screwing up the covering I just can't tell the difference. It has only gotten up to 75 today but the sun/heat had no effect on it. Wing half #1 is completed. It takes me a day to get the fillet strips on then hinging but wing half #2 is on the bench ready to go. Any scrap I have is big enough to use on the stabs so I'm not loosing much as waste. I may end up doing a splatter job like Cliff did on his Roar? It looked good so I will be checking to see what other colors I have in my covering box.
So far I'm really impressed with this covering, there were no wrinkles at all in the top, I think I'm getting back into the groove!!
Gene

AwwNaww

I got into the chinacoat a few years ago. Due to shipping costs, it was quite a leap of faith as I needed to order quite a lot to justify the oversize and shipping. I have been very happy with it and find it to be very tractable. When I first started covering with it, several rolls gave me a "what the h....!!!" when the first yard or two came off unattached to the rest of the roll. It turned out that they had shipped me extra material as the remainder of the roll was the full length advertised. About one roll in four had extra tail ends added that in some cases were enough to do a model. Due to the hobbyking hate hereabouts, I never bothered to admit my liking for this material.

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

From what I understand it is now stocked and shipped from the state side warehouse?? If so then the shipping cost will be way cheaper. I haven't checked to see if this is true or not so ????? Maybe someone on RCU will post up to let us know.
Gene

RICKSTUBBZ

Hey Gene,

Looking good so far.
How about a checkerboard in the trim scheme

AwwNaww

I do believe it is stateside now and lots cheaper....Since I was buying from overseas I pretty much bought enough to keep me going a long time. At least I can say it doesn't have a noticeable shelf life issue. It was hard to judge colors off the monitor and not everything was the shade I expected. Duplicate rolls are the same color, however......I couldn't always say that for monocoat.

blvdbuzzard

I too have used the china coat. It is, for me a cross between mono, ultra, and econo, flight, tower coat coverings. It stretches well, shrinks well, sticks well. I did have an issue when i tried to lift it just after I ironed it down. Well it split the layers. The clear outer sheet came loose from the color glue layer. Tore it all off and used a new piece.

I like the checker board patterns. I picked up a bunch when it was on sale for $4.00 a roll.

I picked up mine from Hobbypartz. They are out of almost every color now.

http://www.hobbypartz.com/film.html


Buzz.

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

That was an inside joke from Rick, he knows how much I like cutting little squares. He does it though, not me. I may do something like checks on the wings bottom?? I haven't really thought much past the base coat. I did notice if I really turned up the heat then tried to lift the covering the color will separate but I have had that happen before with other coverings. It's something I try to avoid anyway. I have the other wing on the bench with the aileron setting up. Not sure what time I will be able to get back out there tomorrow, I have some guests on there way and have to clean house. Not sure how long they will be here or what there plans are. With any luck I may get one side finished tomorrow?
Baking cookies for tonight's TV entertainment, just got the word from the wife, cook them longer, she doesn't like them soft.{gooey} I do, she doesn't like cookie dough either, strange lady??

GallopingGhostler

I used Hobby King film to repair a GP Big Stik .60 ARF airframe. The Bright Red is lighter in color than Monokote's Red used on the ARF. Given that with US shipping from their USA Warehouse, I bought 3 rolls - Transparent Modena (purplish blue), Transparent Burnt Orange (darker yellow) and Bright Red for $37 shipping included. This calculates out to $4.63 per equivalent 26 in. wide x 6 feet long roll of the standard films. The amount of 3 five meter long rolls is equal to 7.9 rolls of the standard film.

I could have easily spent $16 x 7.9 = $126 for a name brand film. Even with the brighter color of the red, here's how it looks on my ARF. The left wing tip, fuselage from the Maltese Cross to nose and portions of the rear fuselage are done in Hobby King film. Even though the heat sensitive glue backing is white, if one seals the edges before the interior, will minimize seam lines. A few places I accidently hit the edges with an iron leaving a thin white glue line exposed. A line made by red permanent felt tip fine line marker guided by a rule makes the line invisible.

Hobby King film definitely has my thumbs up.

Zor

Makes one wonder about the adhesion of plastic film to the structure.

Zor

GallopingGhostler

Didn't have any problems with it adhering to the structure. Did in one place have a problem with it sticking to oil soaked balsa, but don't know of a film that will stick. That is in the fuselage wing saddle area. Might put a mild wipe of Coverite Balsarite there, let it dry and reheat.

Zor

GallopingGhostler,

From blvdbuzzard text it looked like the glue layer was separating from the platic sheet.
If the glue does not adhere well to the platic sheet it cannot do a good gluing job for that film.

Zor

sensei

You know Gene, I have heard allot of good things about this covering, but have never tried it yet. So I am looking forward to your ending comments on the actual covering job itself and how it acts through a season.

By the way, everything you have covered to far looks great!

Bob

GallopingGhostler

Perhaps it was a manufacturing defect? As in any manufacturer's product, there's usually a warranty clause for replacement on defect. Sometimes stuff happens.

I can only speak of my experiences. Where I got the iron too hot or overworked the area, especially around small radius corners where the covering was stretched to limits in one instance, I had a little adhesive blushing through the red. In another instance, I had a similar occurrence when I accidentally dented the balsa through the covering at the fuselage wing opening. I poked several pin holes, let a couple drops of water wick into the balsa dent and used heat from the iron to re-swell the balsa removing the dent. I had some light blushing of the adhesive showing through the red pigment. These are not noticeable unless one looks really close.

The covering appears to be a clear plastic that is coated with a color pigment, then an adhesive layer, whereas Monokote is clear plastic with a pigmented adhesive layer. Perhaps the reason why the Hobby King film is made this way is to avoid patent violations. Monokote has been made for a long time. First plane I applied Monokote to was a Goldberg 1/2-A Junior Falcon in 1973, orange with Monokote trim. Having come from a [i][b]silk or silkspan and dope era, it was quite revolutionary at the time. I had the plane covered in a couple hours, whereas with silk and dope would take me about a week, working on it after work. Photos of application in the Monokote instructions showed using a household clothes iron to apply it. I sometimes wonder if Top Flite came out with their sealing iron, to help mitigate complaints from wives.

Shortly after that, others came out with generics of it, but these were definitely inferior to Monokote. I could still get them to work. This Hobby King stuff is definitely better than them. Basically like in anything, there is a certain amount of technique involved in application. One's ability to master that will determine the quality of the outcome.

Flypaper 2

This one was covered about 3 yrs ago and looks as good now as it did then. Stretches well around the tips with a little heat. As you say, the nice part is, it takes little heat to work with it. This is an old Byron Cristen Eagle all foam. Probably one of the biggest foamies

GallopingGhostler

Good looking bipe, Gord, good covering job and love the trim, although I don't understand the symbolics.

joebob

My Feedback: (14)

I've been using it for the last 6-8 models I've built from .40 size to 50cc gassers. I love the stuff. Doesn't seem to wrinkle in the sun near as bad. I've left the wings in the cab of my truck during the heat of the summer here in FL with no sign of wrinkles. Like others have mentioned, the backing can be a pain to get off, but I found that a couple pieces of masking tape stuck to the corner on each side will usually pull them apart easily. Also, although you can't use Windex to stick it down like Mono, the colors that don't have the white glue will lay down with a magnetic type effect and you can use a squeegee to work all the bubbles out, then hit it with low heat and you get a nice job. Only other thing is that it does seem a little more brittle than Mono, as it will puncture faster. But for the price, you can't beat it. I ordred my last batch from the US warehouse, but it still took over 2 weeks to get here. I did save a lot on shipping, though.

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

Thanks Bob, I do enjoy covering. I thought of you while I was covering the wing, I haven't measured the thickness of the covering but it feels a bunch lighter then mono or ultra but still feels as strong. That just means I haven't stuck a finger through it yet. I do crank up the heat on my iron to flatten/smooth the edges and it works great with this covering. It does have the white backing that does sort of squish out with any pressure. I will see if Acetone will remove it. It sticks to the bare wood very well and once it is ironed onto the over lap there is no getting it off. I was a mono user but changed to Ultra about 15 years ago. The Chinakote seems to be an exact copy of Ultra, I can't detect any difference. It's really fall here so setting it out now to try to sag it is useless. So far 78 degrees has no effect on it but that's a far cry for 115. Only summer will tell. I kept reading about this covering and wanted to give it a try. Can't thank Rick enough for giving me a roll of it. I will be using both mono and ultra for the trim covering. My scale isn't good enough to show me how much weight the covering is adding but it doesn't feel near as heavy as the other two. If I remember I will measure it against mono and ultra to see if there is any big difference in thickness.
Gene

blueapplepaste

My Feedback: (5)

If the static is really bad, try taking a dryer sheet and rubbing it all over it, should help get rid of the static.

Been eyeing this stuff myself - glad to hear its working out well!

Flypaper 2

George: If you look at the letters sort of sideways, it reads FLY in yellow letters. More fun stuff ,

Gord.

Scrubmonkey

ive bought 6 rolls a few months ago. i have tried solarfilm before hand and could never get to grips with it, i tried this and find it alot easier to use. the static is also another thing ive noticed. there have been no wrinkles formed over the 4 or so months ive been using it. all i can say is that it is great and ill be using and recomending it in the future