Tinting f-16 canopy
 

does anyone have a proven formula for tinting canopy?

Tinting f-16 canopy
 

I ripped this off of a thread Gordon Dickens wrote: ;)


I tinted the canopy with RIT Dye: 2 parts yellow, 1 part Tangerine. There are two tricks that I have learned with the RIT Dye to get the canopy dark enough.

"First, I added 1 cup of salt since the RIT package instructions now say to add salt when dying polyester. Polyester is a plastic so it made sense to add the salt for a plastic canopy. This is relatively new in the RIT instructions since I also have several old packages of RIT dye that say nothing about adding the salt with polyester.

The salt apparently made a huge difference in how well the plastic absorbed the dye compared to my results in the past. My wife, who once worked in Burlington's dye labs, told me that she wasn't surprised since they always started with a salt brine in their dye vats whenever they were dying polyester fabrics.

Secondly, I start with boiling hot water and I dip sample pieces of canopy plastic into the water until the water cools just enough so that the plastic doesn't deform. then I dunk the canopy at exactly when the water has cooled just enough not to harm the canopy. "

Thanks Gordon. :cool: :D

Tinting f-16 canopy
 

thanks for the help

Tinting
 

I've used the Pactra brand of lexan paint. The commonly used to paint the RC Car lexan bodies. They make a window tint version that remains the best I've tried. Worked great on the Yellow A-4 and Byron F-16. Just remember to heat the spray can in hot water prior to spraying it and use many many light coats or it will run.
E-mail me at [email protected] if you can't find it locally and I can ship you a can.
Eric...

Tinting f-16 canopy
 

twodogs, call me

steve

Tinting
 

For what it's worth, I've used the method Terry describes in the first reply and it works great. This gives the most accurate 'gold' tint like the FS Viper. The window tinting spray is nice, but does not give the correct color (i.e. more of a smoke gray instead of gold). The smoke works great for sport jets, but you don't find too many combat jets with a smoke color...how would we fly at night?

Dave

Painting canopy?
 

The painting method could work out very well. I used two pack clear, high gloss paint and added some drops of ocher yellow to this. The picture model is from Michel Avonds (Phil's son) and adopted this method after seen mine. It's very wise to try on some scrap clear plastic first and do this layer by layer. Also you must spray the inside of the canopy. Take care that ALL the dust has been removed, this could give a very ugly :mad: sight.

Good luck!

Gerald.

Tinting f-16 canopy
 

.....and here my unfinnished piece...!

Tinting f-16 canopy
 

I also used the dye method that Terry described.I think it gives you a clearer canopy verses paint tint that may make it a bit more opaque.BRG,Roman

Tinting f-16 canopy
 

One more.BRG,Roman M.