gabriel voisin

Don,
you let the fabric in white?

Matz

abufletcher

The white Koverall just acts as a base for the silk. By itself, the silk would be far too transparent. So I will apply the silk on top of the Koverall...instead of painting it.

gabriel voisin

First with Koverall and then with Silk,....two layers?

abufletcher

Yes. Like a variant on the old "tissue then silk" method. The weave of the Koverall needs to be "filled" with either dope or polycrylic. I'm thinking of applying the silk with the polycrylic so that that binds the two layers together. But I need to test this.

gabriel voisin

The advantage?

gabriel voisin

Don, at the moment running on the german tv the new docu "Weltenbrand" in 3 parts.
It's original material ( colored ) of the ww1 with airplanes,....really good.
Can you receive it?

abufletcher

I hope the advantage is that the I'll get both the color and transparency of German clear doped linen. As I said, the silk by itself is too thin and too transparent. I could, of course, paint the Koverall, but the idea of that seems wrong.

abufletcher

Ah, here it is!!! [8D]

http://www.zdf.de/ZDF/zdfportal/prog...0?noDispatch=1

abufletcher

A question for those of you who have used Minwax polycrylic to fill Koverall: How many coats did you need for a smooth finish? Or for those of you (old-school) guys who have finished silk with dope, how many coats?

CK1

My Feedback: (60)

I haven't used the Min Wax poly on Koverall but I have used Nitrate dope many times and to fill the weave usualy gets 3 to 4 coats . Some have added talcum to the dope to fill the weave in fewer coats. If you add talcum it will be a more milky finish which isn't a problem if you are painting the surface ,not so good if you want a natural finish.

Flying Fox

For technique to use polycrylic to fill Koverall, check out the very informative posts by Tmoth (Jim Suchy) over at RCScaleBuilder.com He uses Polycryllic on a regular basis - his craftmanship is amazing. He just covered the wings on his DH-2. If you search through his build or PM him I'm sure you'll find what you need. It seems to be a good alternative to dope.

[link=http://www.rcscalebuilder.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=17664&PN=1&TPN=29]DH-2, 1/3 SCALE [/link]

ARUP

I remember some old timers using milk to fill the weave of silk and fabric for model use. I've never done it. I like nitrate dope for this application since it doesn't create any tendencies to warp wood like a water based product could. When it gases off it add virtually nothing to the weight of the finished item.

Nieuport nut

My Feedback: (10)

I used a single coat of nitrate followed by 2 coats of polycrilic, then the latex on my Aviatik.

Martin

eagledancer

on koverall i usally use 3 coats thinned nitrate (50/50 with lacquer thinner)
could not tell you on polycrilic. never used the stuff

WacoNut

I used Minwax Polycrylic to fill the weave of the Koverall on my 1/3 Waco. I thin the PolyC about 15% with water. This allows it to brush on a bit easier and reduces the air bubbles. 3 coats will fill the weave and leave the fabric texture on the surface and 5 coats will give you a smooth finish. I sand lightly with 240grit paper after the 2nd coat and each coat after. This will remove the top of any dried air bubbles to give a smooth surface for the next coat.
I dumb thumbed the plane into the runway back in the spring so I get to repeat the whole process again this winter[]
Anthony

abufletcher

A consensus is starting to emerge that we're talking about 3-5 coats with some light sanding between coats. That's consistent with my tests.

abufletcher

Here's the result of my initial test with the "Bamboo" silk over Koverall. I like the color a lot. It's warmer and less "lemony" than the Solartex Antique. It's also a bit warmer than the Solartex Linen, and has the additional advantage of being more translucent. Unfortunately, the grey Fall weather doesn't show this up very well in these photos.

WacoNut

Have you thougth about staining/dyeing the Koverall and skipping the Bamboo Silk?
I woud try to stain a small sample in a mixture of tea or coffee. Never know may be the ticket.
Anthony

abufletcher

I can't remember whether I ever thought about that or not. I know from tests that the Solartex won't take a stain. And I experimented with coffee-stained white silk (to be applied without Koverall). The glossy look of the Koverall suggest to me that it won't hold a stain well. I also looked into adding coffee to Nelson's clear but that creates unrealistic yellowing where the paint is thicker.

Nieuport nut

My Feedback: (10)

It can be dyed but you have to use lots of dye for synthetics to get any colour. My Nieuport 12 is covered with dyed Koverall. IIRC I used Dylon brand brown and yellow together in hot, (not boiling) water. I was afraid that the Koverall would shrink in contact with the pot. After about 1/2hr, I hung it over a line to dry. After drying it was covered in small wrinkles, a little like washed silk. I stretched it as much as I could while applying it and then shrank most of them out with the iron. I think I applied 4 coats of dope to fill the weave. (1 nitrate then 3 butyrate).

I think you can see the overall colour is heading in the direction you want, but remains pretty transparent.

Martin

abufletcher

Your Nieuport 12 certainly looks good in the air. Perhaps, I'm just being overly picking about the color I want for German CDL, but I feel there has to be an almost perfect balance between the color of the stained ply fuselage and the color of the wings. In this regard, the Solartex antique would be awful. The Linen would be passable (with a brownish wash) but is almost completely opaque which is totally wrong from the CI. Additionally, Solartex couldn't handle the wire TE...and for that matter neither can the silk. The Koverall proved perfect for that.

The simplest thing of course would have been just to spray paint the wing. But for some reason I absolutely hate the idea of that. And ultimately, paint always looks like paint. Anyway, at this point, I'm going to stick with the silk over koverall for the color and that's going to involve rethinking certain other standard WWI modeling procedures, such as how to do rib stitching.

gabriel voisin

Don,

please remember that the processing between the German, French or British aircrafts was very very different.
Also the German aircrafts was built with very different methods in the aircraft factories.
Please think only the "rib stiching" I've shown you.
The Solartex linen tissue is not so wrong as assumed here.
I'll show you an fabric, which comes very close to the German Albatros covering.

greetings

abufletcher

I also have to admit that I HATE HATE HATE the idea of spray painting the white Koverall to get the color of clear doped linen. Also the think to remember is that the Koverall was the best way to deal with that wire TE. The silk on its own would have been very hard to use. But with the silk over Koverall, I just use a razor to trim off the edges of the silk...that is, it doesn't wrap around the TE.

BTW, the Koverall+Silk is an EXTREMELY tough combination. It takes quite a lot of force to put a bamboo skewer through it. Also as a guess I would say that the Koverall+silk weighs approximately the same as Solartex by itself. Of course there's the weight of the PolyC to consider. But then I don't have to worry about the weight of paint either.

abufletcher

Matz, the problem is that I wasn't able to attach the Solartex to the wire TE in a consistent and aesthetically pleasing way. I'm sure with more practice it's possible to get a good result with the "tabs" method you explained on my CI thread. But I couldn't make it work for me at this time.

gabriel voisin

Don't worry Don, I will only help you to show a easy way.

I show you the way with the combination ,....wire trailing edge + solartex or a other poly tissue.