Hello,
Time to cover! well almost. I normally fiberglass and paint, but now I am using ultracote on a smaller plane. This is my first time ever! using this covering. (ultracote). Any tips on gettin a good finish? Whats the best way to avoid wrinkles.

Thanks!</p>

Hi,

In all things to to with building and flying practice, practice, practice. The sticky by Minn at the head of this section gives great advice on finishing with plastic films and practice, practice, practice. Faye's book also is a great tool and practice, practice, practice. It helps if someone shows you one on one and practice, practice, practice. Get my drift?

Given you are used to glass and paint when covering with film the surface has to be perfect before covering. The smallest imperfection will show through but you are probably the only one who will notice.

Good Luck,

Colin

Yup - what crash said. Preparation, preparation, preparation. The final sand should be at least 220 grit. Vacuum and / or air hose. Tack. Then you need to check out MinnFlyer's videos. Watch 'em a couple of times.

Ultracote will stretch and shrink very nicely. Use heat on the film to get it to stretch. Don't heat-n-press the covering to the surface. Heat-n-stretch over the plane. Also, Ultracote changes its texture as you heat it to "stretch" mode. Before - the surface is a bit marbled in texture. Hold the covered piece up to the light and let the light reflect off the surface. You'll see the texture. After heating into "stretch" mode doing the same will reveal a very taught, shinny surface.

Good luck and don't be afraid to ask. Come up with your approach, post it and see what the peanut gallery has to say.

<font size="2">

RCU member MinnFlyer has done some great how-to articles and videos on covering. check them out as they will go a long way to getting you started.</p>

[link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/article_display.cfm?article_id=67] Minnflyer Covering how-to [/link]</p>

[link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/article_display.cfm?article_id=726] Minnflyer, Another Look at Covering[/link]</p></font>

I STILL can't figure out how to include an "quality" hyperlink into a post ...

Actually, RCKen gets 1/2 the royalties for promoting MinnFlyer's videos - just kiddin'.

Seriously, you can rely on both RCKen &amp; MinnFlyer for excellent guidance ...

SeamusG, in the row of buttons above the reply box is one that says "Link". Click that and add the link in the URL box and the words you wish to link in the "URL Name" box.

If you're using the WYSIWYG version, just highlight the text you wish to link, then click the link button and add the URL.

BTW, I'll give myself a shameless plug and announce that there is now a link on the main Magazine page that hass ALL of my How-To articles on one page. (Although, right now the "Got Smoke" article is missing)

Calibrate your covering iron. This is most important. Use a meat thermometer or such and figure out where 200-230F and 330F are on you dial. Then use the lower heat to apply covering the best you can. The when finshed with that part(fuse, wing,etc) go back over with the higher temp and take out wrinkles and shrink as desired.

50%,- royalties !!!!! Now we know how the mods afford their lavish homes, fancy sportscars, & private jets to fly all over the country. hehehehe

And don't forget our use of the RCURecreational Services!!!!

Ken

A tip, float the covering. Only adhear the covering down at the adges of the covering, shrink the rest without pressing/adearing... Imperfection don't show through this way. If you plan to ahear everywhere then do a skim coat of a light weight/easy sanding filler like simple drywall compound (not spacle it is 5 times heavyer than drywall mud) prior to covering, sand with 400 and higher and then cover. The idea wold be to fill only the grain pores making it very smooth. After sanding use a compressor/blower to blow the dust off of the surface.

I usually just float the covering...

With ultracote, when trimming adhear the smaller trim pieces with the trim tool (small iron) with low heat. Ultracote won't buble if done like this.

Hey Mike - I need ta go to the forum sandbox and play. I use Firefox as my browser. Some times things just don't work out.

Hey RC - do you guys sponser a "Covering" cruise on Lake Superior mid winter?

I2nd airbusdrvr &amp; twn suggestions.

On covering schemes: For 1st couple of covering attempts Iwould use a design that is made up of a "base color" over a surface and then add accent trim over the base. Different base colors can be used on the different components. The idea here is to avoid having the underlying structure of the plane component being covered affecting the overall covering design (too much). Then covering efforts can use smaller pieces of the various colors that overlap by 1/4" using airplane structure to support the seams. Less covering used and lighter overall weight but the design is based on where there is an appropriate hard part under the seams. Finally, you can design covering schemes without consideration of the plane's structure by constructing multi-color panels on a sheet of glass with the appropriate 1/4" overlaps. The panel can then be transferred in its entirety to the plane without concern for have some kind of structure under the seams.

Of course - like twn said - float the covering sheet or panel adhering the film only to the perimeter of the piece.

Caution:you can easily dent the wood under the covering by applying pressure with the iron. With the right iron temp and slow movement the glue will activate nicely. Also, Ultracote's surface is kinda soft and tends to scratch. Either smooth the bottom of your iron with very fine paper or use a thin sock designed for your iron.

Is that the ship that has a staff of waitresses om Hooters!!! You lucky dogs !!!!!!!!!!!

As SeamusG mentioned, always use a sock(cloth cover) for you iron. If you don't have the ready made one, go to some cheap baby store(Walmart, Target, etc.) and buy some baby socks-cotton preferred.

Hi!
I never use a sock!
A sock prevents heat to be distributed to the surface...no good!

Now there ya have your basic conundrum - good heat transfer or (possibly) scratched surface. The decision is yours.

My Ultracote work has been coming out very nice now but I have a question. I have a terrible time where one color overlaps another as if you are applying a sunburst on a covered wing. Where the overlay is over an open structure I use a fine pin and pierce many holes in the primary covering. This allows gassing of the glue and prevents bubbles. The problem I have is when covering over a base film that is over wood structure. I have a terrible time with bubbles. I have tried 190 degrees and working in a rotery motion from the middle. All that helps, but I still get bubbles. I pierce them with a #11 blade tip and iron over, but most of the time that just moves the bubble. Argh!!!

The attached pics are of a 4Star60 that I covered with a base film and trim pieces - no panels were pre-constructed. The SSEin my avitar was done exclusively with panels constructed on a glass sheet before covering the wings, fuse, or tail.

I used a small trim sealing iron that has a 2-position switch - high &amp; low set on low heat. That is enough to just activate the Ultracote adhesive. I did not prepare the base film to be covered in any way. I started at the middle of one edge and simply worked my way out overlapping each "sweep" of the iron with the previous pass. If I don't overlap I am guaranteed to have trapped air causing a bubble. It's slow going so don't try to make it faster.

On applying trim over a sheeted surface vs. over an open area. The sheeted surface takes the most time - aka - go more slowly - because the trim iron has a rounded bottom so the contact patch is relatively small when ironing on a flat sheeted surface. You have to overlap each pass. Bottom line it takes longer. The open surfaces are far easier because with the right pressure on the trim iron you can get the film to conform to the entire bottom surface of the trim iron - bigger contact patch. You still have to overlap each sweep but instead of dealing with a 1/8" contact patch you have a 1" contact patch. Same speed - you just heat 8 times the area in a given time period.

Check the 4*'s wing top out on the tip. Those pearl purple sections are trim pieces. Each piece easly took 30 minutes to apply. The yellow and red went on fairly quickly. Like driving a car - ya gotta go slow in the slow sections of track and fast in the fast sections. Go fast in the slow sections and you're gonna crash-n-burn.

The 4* trim wasn't perfect. An occasional bubble came up. After finishing the trim piece I used a brand new #11 X-acto blade and with the blade flat to the surface it was slid into the side of the bubble - with a low iron pushing the air towards the slit and then just pull the blade as the iron gets to the cut. No pins for me - they leave marks.

HTH,

My last one came out near perfect, but as you I had some bubbles over the sheeted areas. The fine pin holes on the under layer are done before putting on the overlay and don't show at all because you cover over them. You must use a fine sewing pin though, not a clunky modeling T-pin. Here is a photo of my latest Sumpthin' Extra with a fairly complicated covering scheme.

The best way to avoid bubbles is to remove the covering underneath - the larger the overlay, the more important this becomes.

Start by covering the wing, then lay the overlay in place and mark its position (red lines)

Remove the covering inside the lines, but leave some room for overlap

Apply the trim

A better way to do it (and the preferred method as it keeps the seams out of the airflow) is to cover it in 3 steps from back to front

Mike - doesn't that require that you're covering a fully sheeted surface? Otherwise, either the trim must follow underlying structure or you're overlapping an unsupported void?

I was replying to post #16

However, you can do the same thing over an open structure, it just takes a little more finesse. You can see me do this in video #4 here:

http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/a...article_id=726

Mike, If you look at the photo of my SE on the post a few up from here, do you think it would have been possible to cover that design with your 1/2" overlap method. I would have had a long and curvy open area. I wonder how that idea of building the sheet up on a piece of glass would work here. I wonder what keeps the film from sticking to the glass. I also am not sure how you could apply the whole piece and shrink it without distorting those overlapped edges.The other problem I have had was putting a sunburst on a lower wing of a US 60. My design looked like the one on the kit box. I don't see any way of cutting the covering out below those pointy pieces. The fine pin process worked fine over the open areas. The pieces over the sheeted areas had bubbles betwen the overlay and the base material.

Ihad a similar film structure on one of my SSE - 3 color graphic on the wing top that did not follow any underlying structure. Pic 1 shows the end result. Pic 2 shows the 3 colors after the pieces have been cut out and taped together with at least a 1/4" overlap. Pic 3 shows the pieces after they have been seamed on a mirror. Glass works well for this as it is not porous and will not give the adhesive an opportunity to bite into the surface. Use a low heat that just activates the adhesive to make sure that the pieces are positioned correctly. If not you can pull them apart and reposition them. Once the inital seam is heated follow up with a hotter iron to fully activate the adhesive but not hot enough to shrink the film. Let the seams cool. Once cool the panel can be removed by pulling up from one side. The adhesive has a bit of a hold on the glass but not much. No adhesive will remain on the glass if film is allowed to cool. The panel can be applied to the wing as you would a single piece of film.

Ihave not stretched a panel seam over a wing tip or other similar form that requires some serious stretching. So far I've used a single color to do the tip. On the SSE I used a single piece of yellow and pulled it over all edges providing an excellent surface for the panel to adhere to on the end.

Like always, Ultracote cuts easily with a new razor blade or X-acto knife until you heat it up to "fully shrink" the panel - then it's pretty tough, expecially the pearl coverings.

HTH - yea, I know, my name isn't Mike ...

PS- here's some pics of the bottom panels too. They could have been applied following the LEsheeting, rib cap strips, center sheeting and TE sheeting but Ichose to make a panel instead.

Maynard, yes, very possible