Bax is dead on. I never use a heat gun. Everything he said I learned the hard way (hey Bax where where you when I needed ya?). I have used both. I like them both. Though I tend to use the Ultra more. I like the semimatte kinda finish it has. For a first cover job I heartely reccomend ultra. It is a little easier to use for a beginner. Just read the instructions that comes with the covering. There is a lot of useful info there. Use them and your results should be good. Good luck.

Mark Shuman

Bax:

When I said "boils off a drop of water in a few seconds" I was referring to my usual temp for GLUING. I always glue down first, THEN shrink when I've got everything the way I want it (and you are right, it takes a LOT of heat to shrink MK).

If a newbie tries to shrink as they are gluing, at the temp you were referring to they might end up melting a hole or separating the color from the plastic (which sucks @$$) in the piece they are working with (speaking from experience here!)

Not arguing with you Bax, you provide a lot of great info here. Just wanted to clarify that.

I'll stick to my guns, and all the advice here, and go with UC and try to get the temps right. I'm surprised because this all sems to be such an exact art that the boyz with IR temp sensors aren't out making exact readings of their irons when they get the best results!!! I know, it varies from color to color, but a general range I guess would work (not that I have, nor plan to buy and IR temp sensor). Another good bit of info came out here that I was never aware of...that it's better to glue down then shrink. I read the covering tips here on RCU that says to tack this and that, but didn't recall it saying to glue down. I musta missed it [8\|] Anyway, I'm sure empowered with all this it should come out really well! Thanks, yet again, guys.

i found a couple rolls of monocoat in a metal storage
shed. it was from my wife's father that past away years ago.
the film was probably 20-30years old...who knows? about 6-12" of the stuff
was wriggled, but the rest was still good. i didn't have any problems
with the film. higher heat for MK of course. this is what i did with it.
the white stuff was the old MKstuff.
the dark is mettalic is MK
the orange is tower ..becuase i can laid it on film with low,low heat.
i used the solvent seal stuff for the edges of the scheme.
it took me forever to cut the dark trim around the orange.lol
i use a piece of glass from an old stereo console as a cutting board.
the knife don't dull easily... it glides
covering is the most fun part of building.

After 35 years of building r/c models, and years of control line models before that, I can say with certainty that both MonoKote and Ultracote have both advantages and disadvantages over each other.

Ultracote applies at a lower temp, and reaches a maximum shrink at a lower temp. But it's a real bear to cut good trim lines, or to make touch up cuts after it has been heated at any temperature. If youare not good at sharpening an Exacto blade, you better have a bunch of new ones on hand. Ultracote dulls blades fast. It also comes in a smaller size at a higher cost.

Now I'm not a fan of Great Planes by any means, but in fairness, if you learn how to apply MonoKote, it's the easier of the two for covering. The trick is to have enough excess material to be able to pull on. With both coverings, you should have the material as tight and wrinkle free as possible before you tack the corners, and pull any additional wrinkles out as you continue to tack the perimeters. As far as shrinkage is concerned, it beats Ultracote hands down. When the covering discolors and becomes somewhat less opaque, you are using enough heat.

I have had a few rolls of Monokote over that years that were a little less than desirable as far as quality was concerned, but overall it's been fine. I recently covered a 1/3 scale Waco with Monokote, even after I had told the owner fabric would have been a much better choice. Many, many compound curves and radii. It worked out just fine, but I would not have even attempted it with Ultracote.

With both, use a sock or old piece of a cotten t-shirt to cover the iron shoe. Always use a gun if at all possible for large area shrinking.

I have obtained permission from the wife. We will be going to the not-so-local hobby shop tomorrow to pick up an iron and covering (and a tack cloth, I have a heat gun already). Mark, I hope you don't mind, but I believe I'll be stealing your design [X(]
I can't think of a better way to cover my plane, though it will likely be different colors. I've watched the videos posted for the recent p-38 (?) review and think I can manage to cover 'er well...we'll see. I'll be sure to post pictures, likely tomorrow night after it's done. Wish me luck!

-Dave

Can't wate to see how it turns out! Keep your fingers away from the Iron!

just returned from the hobby shop. Got a 21st century iron (ugh, only one they had, though it is nice and will last), three rolls: yellow, blue and white and a 36' black trim roll. I'm going down to home depot to pick up tack cloths since they're really cheap there for a big pack then I'll sit down with a good beer and have at it! [sm=spinnyeyes.gif] Makin me nervous just thinking about it, hehe, sure it'll be fine if I take my time. I'll post pictures of progress when I get something done

-Dave

You forgot to pick up the 100 box of X-Acto blades...

remember, to tajke your time, and be prepapred to pull up / off at least one attempt.

Haha, no kidding! Dulls blades really fast! I mentioned before that I was going to post pics on Saturday, but I ran into two problems. First, two of the USB ports on my computer stopped working so I couldn't use the flash card reader. This is an interesting problem as I've been in IT for >5 years and haven't yet figured out why these ports just suddenly stopped working!!! Second, I worked from 7pm to about 11pm on Saturday to just get the rudder and elevator covered! I had no idea it was going to take that long to do such work. I must say though, those videos from the p-38 review really helped me when I got to the wing tips. Although the tips of the PT-40 aren't as curvy as those in the video, they're rounded enough in two directions that I would've never gotten past them without that help.

So far I've managed to cover the top of the wing, top of the h.stabilizer, both sides of the v.stab and the bottom of the fuse. Boy, that v.stab was a pain in my ***** I tell you! But it came out pretty nice. I screwed up and coved the h.stab before I had put the v.stab reinforcement triangular blocks on, and subsequently left too much material around the reinforcer's edges and it made small wrinkles all over, which disappointed me due to the fact that I had taken such care to cover everything so neatly. Wife says it looks awesome, though. I think she's being nice

Good call on pulling off some work. I had decided on a color scheme that would overlap colors on the leading edge of the wing by about 4" before the edge. Before realizing I was making a huge mistake I started to put monokote over the top of other monokote with a 4" overlap. I got about 2" into it before seeing what a hideous, air-bubbled mess it can make. I pulled back on the top, cut out the 4" to the leading edge and started over, it's working out quite nicely.

I'm nervous about, and hoped someone would have suggestions for the fuse lines. I'm planning to make the bottom white with the top 25% of the sides and top blue. I also wanted to make a black pinstripe down the sides. I don't know that I'll bother trying to make windows, but it seems a shame not to have that definition. I figured since I've already done the bottom (as directed by the kit instructions) I would do the sides next, working with a strip of white to about .5" from the top, then a strip of blue covering just up to the top edge. Then I'd cover the top and top corners with the blue. This will let me work with a smaller amount of material to make the white/blue line down the sides. I plan to cover the line with black pinstripe and accent it again .25-.5" either up or down from there.

I still have the bottom of the wing, ailerons and bottom of the elevator to go before I get to the sides/top of the fuse so I have some time to plan.

Even after that, though, I want to make those stripes and sunburst pattern such like yours, Mark. I hope you have some suggestion to make the trims even on both sides, while also getting the same angle? I've thought to make a large rectangle of material, with each end being the final width of the sunburst. Then drawing a diagonal line through lengthwise corner to corner to make two, identical sunburst 'rays.'

I now know why people say that blood, sweat and tears go into this work. I've poured plenty of sweat into it, sometimes getting on my work, and last night I poured blood into it...I was going to cut a small slice of material for the v.stab triangular enforcements. I had them measured out, ruler down, and it was a small piece of covering. I didn't want it sliding around so I left my hand on the ruler and reached for the blade. You might think, and have probably done this a few times, that I ran the blade over a few knuckles or finger tips while cutting along the material. Nope, instead, when I grabbed the blade it was upside-down! I put the tip on the table, just before the material and pushed. Yup, gives me the heeby geebies too [:'(] cause I can still remember the feeling of the blade slipping into my finger tip like a hot knife in butter. Had to get the wife's help on that one, so now I'm limping along without an index finger tip to use (which is quite annoying, especially when you do even a fraction of the typing I do on a daily basis in my job). It definitely has slowed me down a bit..

So that's covered two of the three requisits and I suspect plenty of tears of joy will be expunged when I first fly 'er, and then again when I first crash

Uh, yea...I think that's enough blabbing for now (/me stuck at work).

-Dave

PS: I hope everyone got good flying time over the weekend! I know in my area it was a beautiful two days, esp those fathers out there!
PPS: Mark, I have ironed my fingers a few times, nothing serious...why didn't you warn me about upside-down blades?

Thats the way I did it! As to spacing them out I used the windex trick, mine were mono over a base color. Spray the base with windex and the back of the trime piece. and slide them around tell you get them where you want them. Then squeegee out the windex and any air between the layers. let it sit over night to dry and use trim solvent around the edges to seal it down permanent. if there are any bubbles after the solvent has evaperated...next day for me...heat around the bubble lightly with the iron...to soften the covering and poke the bubble with the tip of you knife. (try the sharp end down) while its still hot use the iron to push the air out and seal down trim where the bubble was.

And when you make your sunburst stripes use the entire with of the role and cut them 6" wide, then cut corner to corner. I also sugest using a blunt or rounded point. a sharp point might come loose in the wind blast. By the way the windex trick doesent work very well with ultra cote...so Im told...never tryed it my self.


Sorry bought that! Let me tell you not to cover bare footed! damn knife rold off the table and stuck point down in my foot!!!!!!!!!

Alright! Great info. That windex trick comes in handy on just about anything. I use that to put stickers on my old rc car bodies and bumper stickers, college stickers...anything sticker just lay down on top of windex (or any glass cleaner), let it sit and you're golden.

So, here's the update. I finished the two base layers of the wing and some trim. I burned a small hole in one of the tips but I figure I'll live with that. There are some small wrinkles around the wing tips, but they're extremely small. End result? I'm quite happy with it, and for my first time I think it came out pretty well. I got ahead of myself a few times, once I mentioned in my previous post, and this time I put a trim line down before putting the starburst pattern on, but that's ok, cause the points only come to the center, not along the whole line. I haven't been able to get good pictures of it, haven't figured out the right light (and I think it's daylight) to get the pics, but I'll post what I have

Looking good so far!.....

newbieT:

Looks GREAT! You're way ahead of the typical first timer...

Hey, Thanks! I had started to write a post here before but closed my browser and lost all I had written [:@] (FireFox tabbed browsing, forgot this page was on that window). So anyway, thanks to Marks suggestion (despite knowing the windex trick for years, never occurred to me for coverings) I'm going to proceed with the sunburst and stripes on the bottom. After my run in with the 4" overlap accident I wasn't going to try it, but now I have much more confidence that I can achieve good results.

To answer a question, though, I used MonoKote on this plane. I went to the NSLHS (that is, 'Not-So-Local') and they mainly carried MonoKote, not surprisingly. For now, I'm glad I did, the results are good and I'm learning how the material acts. For those of you that have trouble with monokote, I can't speak to UC, however I can say that the stuff has specific temperature ranges (200-250 degrees for glue, 250-300 min shrink, 300-350 max shrink). Stick to those ranges, test the film and start working. I've had no problems working with monokote whatsoever so far. It shrinks great at the right temperature (which is *really* hot)! The other thing to remember is with the sock on, you have to increase heat by ~10% to get the same results. This is my findings from this one experience and research. I usually stuck to middle ranges, 225 for glue/tack and only as high as 325 to shrink. I did burn the wingtip once with the heat gun while trying to get perfect corners, but I realized I would never achieve that my first time 'round, so I let my guard down and it still came out fine [X(]

Tonight there will be no work. It's my 1st anniversary (after 10 years dating, such small numbers ) so I highly doubt the wife will be too happy if I disappear to the computer room to work on the 'ol plane (yes, the computer room, which is also our second bedroom and guest room, we just bought a house so I'll finally have a proper shop!).

That's all for now. I'll post updates later.

-Dave

Never had any problems with monokote. It just needs a different method of applying. Monokote does shrink more in the direction of the roll compared to the transverse direction. So, for covering wings with open bays, make sure that a the lengthwise piece is in the roll direction. Otherwise, the sagging in the open bay areas will be more

Not trying to hijack your thread, but did you wrap your wing once or twice? I'm also using the yellow, but have found it nearly transparent over the gaps between spars. I'm using the UC by the way.

I don't care if anyone hijacks It's not _my_ thread, heh.

I'm not sure I understand, 'once or twice,' but I can tell you how I did it. I did basically in quarters, top first covering the entire TE. Then did the bottom piece covering the top piece by 1/4" or so and wrapped that around the leading edge and all the way to the trailing edge. I put black pinstripe over the seam to clean it up a bit and add accent, then I'm going to use sealant to make sure nothing gets under it. Also overlapped in the center by 1/4". I plan to do a trim scheme tonight, time allowing since I have the clean [:@]

I had an easier time doing the second half, as I tried with the heat gun. While wrapping around the leading edge I pulled and stretched the material down and blew away the wrinkles while also making sure the bottom center seem was as close to straight as I could get it. The material will turn slightly, at least it did on mine, while going over the LE because of the dihedral. Using the heat gun while firmly stretching helped to straighten it back a bit and also sufficiently glued it to the LE.

Have fun!

-Dave

Wow, I wasn't aware you could do it that way! This is my first Covering as well, my wife and I wrapped the UC one time completely around 1/2 the length of the wing (wingtip to center) then shortened it so it would overlap 1/4" on the bottom. Then wrapped the other 1/2 of the wing the same way, joining in the center and overlapping there as well. Then pulled it tight and ironed it down to get the wrinkles out. Thanks for the input, you're covering looks great!

There's a few other posts about covering, some with up to four pieces on each wing half in a certain order so the seams aren't windward. Thanks about my covering job, it is my first and although not as great as some I've seen, I'm still quite proud of it!

So here's another pic of the completely (but not completed) covered wing from my favorite angle. The wing tip got washed out because of the flash, but it's yellow with the black trim. The ailerons got a bit messed up, and I'm upset about it [:@] I drilled the holes for the torque rods and cut the notches out so everything was fitting perfectly...until I did the bevel. Here in the bottom pic you can see what I mean. So for you experienced builder/flyers out there, is this going to be a problem???

Thanks
-Dave

PS: See the mess I have to clean!? hahaha []

Ok boys and girls. Here's the completed wing. I decided to leave the top as is with the blue/yellow line and make the sunburst on the bottom. It's a good thing, too, because I ran into some trouble while experimenting with how to get it glued. Decidedly, that's not a good idea. I did glue down the sharp tips and the TE parts. I plan to seal them all up later. My attention to detail aparently isn't quite good enough yet, as when I did the ailerons I did them entirely in yellow, top and bottom. So here you can see the ailerons are going to be just plain yellow, instead of the blue and they won't continue on the stripes...wife said it was fine haha

Gotten pretty drunk now, and it's late...

-Dave

PS: I did the ailerons sober, too! [:@]

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by sealant?

?? What is this sealant?

JJboomer,
Have a look [link=http://www.monokote.com/accys/topr6020.html]here[/link] for the trim solvent.

I wanted to update everyone. My finger is almost entirely healed, but there's still a small ravine I guess you could say, where the cut once was. I took the bandage off over the weekend while in Maine on vacation, it was driving me nuts, and it was a good time for it anyway

I'll let the pictures do the talking...as I mentioned before, my attention to detail isn't quite right. The ailerons are going to stay yellow, as well as the elevator.
I finally got the hang of those stripes. I did use the windex trick, but I didn't let the tail stripes dry the 24 hrs. Instead, since they're at absolute max 2" wide (and that's beyond the tail edges, so they're probably 1.75" or so), I squeegeed out the windex and made sure they were on nice and flat, no bubbles or anything in between the two films. I think the solvent might work really well in this case, no ironing, no windex. Not sure though. Anyway, after I got it all flatened I just ironed very carfully. I didn't do this on the wing stripes, they're much wider and pass over open bays so ironing wouldn't work and the heat gun would've just made a mess on something like that. So here are there pics. I haven't finished the top fuse yet, as you can see...