I'm repairing the wing on a cheap electric park flyer. It looks like it has a shrink plastic covering on foam, so I bought a roll of Topflite monokote. then after reading the directions and looking at the website about the heat tools, I'm starting to think that the heat is going to melt the foam. I've never used this stuff before. Years ago I built a couple of balsa framed planes and covered them with silkspan. I was surprise to see that silk span is still available.
Wayne
You need a covering material that will stick at a lower temperature than Monokote, such as Econokote, Oracover or Ultracote.
Thanks Robert and MJ. I'll start reading up and looking for those. I know the place I bought the monokote at also carried the econocote.
Wayne
Yeah, that's right. I forgot about that one. You can also do well with the various Cheapokote house brands from places like Hobby Lobby and Balsa USA. I think H. L. sells something called SuperKote, or at least they did 15 years ago. That stuff will stick almost at room temperature.
On Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:50:03 -0400, "Wayne L" wrote in :
In my experience, things are a little more complicated than that.
I built a Gremlin for combat (my third or fourth) and decided to splurge by using Monokote for the wing. In the past, I had used contact paper.
I figured I would use the same technique: get the covering to stick to the balsa leading and trailing edges of the wing, overlapping the material around each, and not worrying about getting the stuff to stick to the foam.
The problem with Monokote is that the amount of heat necessary to shrink it warms the foam enough to cause the covering to stop shrinking and/or expand. Faye Stilley takes advantage of this cyclic ability of Monokote to both expand and contract under heat in order to do work some of his magic around compound curves.
The foam never melted.
The covering has never come loose from the leading or trailing edge.
I've never been able to get it tight. I'll probably rip it off and go back to contact paper. It smooths out and shrinks with low heat enough to give a decent look to the planes.
For a park flyer, the contact paper may be too heavy. In the early days, Zagis were covered with colored tapes of various kinds. I don't know what they're doing nowadays.
There are lots of tissues and cloths available.
You could use brown paper and thinned Elmer's glue to give a smooth surface, then prime it and paint it (using the thinnest possible coats).
Some folks just spraypainted their Gremlins with thinned latex paint.
Watch out for foam-eating paints and glues. Nothing is more frustrating that ruining a wing core by melting it with paint or glue. Don't ask me how I know. :o(
Marty
Right in the Gremlin instructions they tell you to NOT put too much effort into the finish, that's right down my alley! mk
The trick to attaching Ultracote to foam is to first spray the foam with 3M contact adhesive. My first Zagi had the godawful colored tape on it. Even the tape has to have the 3M applied to the surface of the wing before you apply it. My second Zagi and my Razor were covered with Ultracote on the 3M sprayed wings and remained tight as a drum their entire lives. The Zagi's stripped out corpse is in my garage and even after cutting and ripping out the electronics and hardware the covering is still as tight as when I applied it. Unfortunately a couple of years ago they changed the formula of the 3M and its no longer foam friendly. People around here promptly cleaned out every hardware store in the area that had the old formula. Got a couple cans stashed away myself!
On Sat, 16 Jun 2007 12:05:40 GMT, "MJKolodziej" wrote in :
Yup.
I've had a lot of fun with them.
Marty
Hi,
Back in the 90's, I was in MA. Two guys from a town not far away developed the Gremlin. A group came over to our field one day and flew a combat contest. I got the bug and bought a foam wing & the plastic fuse from them. In those days that was a kit.
I covered it with Econocote. Not sure if it is still made I have not been active for about 10+ years. Econocote was lower cost than monokote and had a much lower shrink & stick point so you could use it on foam. I actually still have the gremlin and the Econocote is still on it. Looks as good as when new, well almost.
About to get active again with electrics.
John
So John, what are you considering to get into Elec with? mk
I have bought a Mini Ultra Stick, 450 electric motor, LiPo 2100 mah batteries, etc. Decided to buy a new Futaba Fasst 2.4 Ghz spread spectrum radio. I just need to get it all put together. I want to clean workshop area first and it looks like it was hit by a tornado. But at least I now have motivation to get it done.
John
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