banana oil on models?

Amyl Acetate is also a cellulose paint stripper and adhesive thinner.

It is also IIRC an ester and I believe that it has the comm> Chemical name is Amyl Acetate. It is quite similar to clear dope, but

it was alos the base for a persistent poison gas the fine german chemists developed in ww1. green cross category, i believe.

Banana oil was used mainly for water proofing. Doping the covering tissue with banana oil allowed them to be flown over and to be able to land, or floated in the local pond(or bathtub, ...for testing purposes naturally).

back in the '40s, banana oil was used to attach tissue to the balsa frame of stick models. Was lighter than glue, so it allowed the model to fly farther. Al Fisher snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

Is banana oil still available? If so, where can you get it?

Martin

i've got some snake oil i can sell you.

I recall reading many, many years ago that a good way to do diorama bases, rock and brick walls, accessories, etc was to sculpt them in plastacine (modelling clay, to you northern hemisphere types), then coat with banana oil. Apparently it sets the plastacine as hard as rock!

I've always wanted to try this but I've never seen banana oil or known what it is.

James V

wrote>a good way to do diorama

I tried this years ago and it works. An advantage was that you didn't have to worry about setting time. When the Plasticine (sp?)is right, put on a liberal coat of banana oil and leave to set (for quite a while, IIRC) Have not seen either Plasticine or banana oil for quite a few years. (But haven't looked.)

Doc H

I'll have two please...

RobG (the Aussie one)

just send $49.99 to snake oil