Getting covering to stick
 

My backup plane it getting old and the covering will not stick. Any suggestions what I can use to get the monokote to hold again?

RE: Getting covering to stick
 

If its still good it should reapply with a monokote iron.

RE: Getting covering to stick
 

njrcflyer, do you know why it won't stick? Is there a particular place on the airframe where it won't stick or is it all over? How old do you estimate the MonoKote is?


Mike

RE: Getting covering to stick
 

The plane has hundreads of flights on it and it is approx 4 years old. The covering is coming apart at the seams. I have tried resealing with a hot sealing iron but the seams open again after a short time. I am just two lazy to recover the whole fusalarge.

RE: Getting covering to stick
 

A trick that sometimes works is to coat the area that the coating has come loose from with as thin a layer of aliphatic resin glue (such as Titebond or Elmers), let it dry, then iron the loose coating down over it. Of course this assumes that you have removed any grease or oil film first with alchohol or acetone. Aliphatic glues are heat activated very similar to the original adhesive coating one time. If you heat it a second time and then try to reseal with heat it will not be nearly as strong on the second heat induced bonding is not as strong as on the first due to the shorter molecular bonds that are fomed under heat..

RE: Getting covering to stick
 

My guess is that the material to which you originally applied the covering, presumably wood, has become contaminated. There are one or two good threads here on RCU that deal with removing fuel residue and other contaminants but I can't recall the threads' names (sorry). You might try that in order to get the glue to stick again. But you'll still have to deal with whatever contaminants are on the underside of the MonoKote, possibly damaging the remaining glue.

I had the same problem with an ancient 80" Citabria. I eventually cut away the effected MonoKote, and spent a week or so cleaning the balsa (that's why I know about the RCU threads) underneath. After I got it thoroughly cleaned, I laid down new MonoKote and it worked great. It was a good winter project.

Best of luck,
Mike

RE: Getting covering to stick
 

Thank you all for your input. I will try your suggestions.