Anyone who has used Solartex to cover a model such as a Decathlon etc. Do you like the stuff and what did you paint it with? Would butryrate/nitrate dope work well with this product? Thanks

Love the stuff!!!!!!!! That and Ultra Cote in the plastic. Only thing I use anymore. Tex will make you look like A Pro. You can use any paint you like then shoot it with A couple of light coats of water base clear flat Urathane and let it sit for A couple of days to fuel proof the paint. Dope is very heavy so I don't ever use it but it will work too. Just all around good stuff and after it has been out in the sun once and shrunk back up it doesn't blister or sag.

Ditto Gray Beard! Solartex is wonderful stuff. I'm finishing up a SIG 1/5 Cub covered in Cub Yellow Solartex. Easy to put on, shrinks tight. You almost have to work at messing up with this stuff. It will take any kind of paint, dope or what-have-you for a finish. I did my 1/4 Nieuport 28 with dime store acrylics right over the solartex. With a clear urethane coat, it's holding up fine. Great stuff.

papermache

Dope is not heavy! It is perhaps the lightest possible finish that can be used. Most of what is in dope evaporates. Nitrate dope is not glow fuel proof so, you need to put butyrate over it to fuel proof it.

Guess I am just cheap. I covered a GP Decathalon 40 with solartex and painted it with rustoleum spray paint.
Edwin

This is A photo of my Boeing F4B-2 done as the Army P-12. It's several years old and I fly it at IMAA events mostly. It sits out in the heat and sun for days on end and after the first time I just brought it home and hit it with the heat gun and the Tex has never needed to be shrunk up again. The covering is so easy to put on you can do A one piece covering around A curved fuse and then just shrink it down. Compound curves are no problem at all.
In my case on this plane I used the two colors then shot it with two thin coats of the water base urathane just to help with the clean up from the four stroke engine snot. Even if you go with gas it should still have the coating just to help the cleaning process and it helps keep the dirt out of the weave.
I have had the same luck with the Ultra Cote. I always cover then set it out in the sun on my deck all day during the sumer then tighten it back up and it goes forever without any sag.
Good stuff!!! Only thing the I find wrong with it is the price but that doesn't seem to hold me back from it!!

I re-covered a GP DR-1 in Solartex and painted it with interior latex house paint. It bonds very well, you can brush it and get brush effects if you want, or brush it and the brushmarks will almost disappear. I clearcoated with Top Flite LustreKote, had no compatability problems, and it made a very nice, smooth, and fuelproof finish. The Solartex will temporarily relax a little when you paint it, not enough to wrinkle or anything, and when the latex and topcoat cures, gets just as tight as when originally shrunk. I was surprised how little weight difference there was between the painted Solartex and the original MonoKote, less than a pound for the triplane.

I've tried alot of different coverings and for a "fabric type", Solartex is the only kind I'll use now.
I love the stuff. It goes on easy and can be painted with just about any kind of paint.
I prefer to use the "natural" and paint with latex with a top coat of water based poly. (No harmful fumes, and you can have any color you want mixed up.) Of course the colored solortex works good too.

You do not even have to paint it if you do not want to. It is fuel proof as it comes. A clear coat or paint does make it easier to clean though as the weave does have a nasty habit of collecting dirt that is hard to clean out. But even then, Solartex (or any of the covering ending in ...tex such as Colortex, Worldtex etc.) is may favorite covering for large models.

I plan on using solartex and worldtex for my sr. telemaster. The worldtex had a color that solartex did not have in stock. I can't wait to get started!!

Funkymusic, you picked the one model that Solartex is not the best choice. The Sr. Telemaster wing depends greatly on the covering to give it stiffness and the Solartex will not do the job as well as a film will here unless you internally stiffen the wing with X's between the ribs and D sheeting from the spar to leading edge. If you want a very strong (several orders of magnitude stronger than monocote or ultracote, get some OZ covering. Not readily available as it is an Australian product and the only distributer in the US that I know of is Art Graybow. Google the web to get the address. His web site used to be (probably still is) HTTP://homepages.clunetwork.com/~apgrow/

Concur with all the praise for Solartex. However, you can't paint it with anything. You can paint it with anything with the exception of Butyrate dope. Butyrate dope will just peal off in big sheets once dry. I have heard that if you give it a coat of nitrate dope first that you can then paint it with butyrate and it'll stick, however I have not tried it. Once I got all the butyrate off my plane, I repainted with Nelsons water based poly and had excellent results.

Andy

who sells solartex in the states?

BALSA U.S.A

thanks.

I covered my SIG 1/5 scale cub with cub yellow solartex, great stuff, If you can cover with monokote this stuff will make you look like a pro. They say you can cover a tennis ball with no wrinkles and I believe them.