Hi. I recently ordered a Spectra and two rolls of Monokote from Tower. In covering the tail feathers with transparent yellow, it seemed to take more heat than expected but did finally tighten with a few minor wrinkles that refused to come out. Then I covered the fuselage bottom with black. pulling it as tightly as possible and sealing the edges up onto the sides. I decided to shrink it with my heat gun before going on.
No matter how tightly you put in on initially, the first application of heat will cause it to relax and wrinkle slightly but as you continue to heat it will suddenly shrink .... at least that's what's supposed to happen. In the case of the black Monokote, it refused to shrink. In fact the more heat I applied the worse it got. Even heated to the point of melting there were still major wrinkles. Frustrated, I removed the black and picked up a roll from my LHS. No black but they had maroon which looked pretty good combined with yellow. This went on nicely and when heat gunned shrank easily, needing a lot less heat that the yellow transparent. All wrinkles came out easily.
I've been using Monokote for over 30 years and never had a problem like this. While I'm not a pro, my covering jobs generally come out looking reasonable. Have any of you experienced a similar problem with Monokote lately? Have they had a batch problem or changed supplier?
rct