Not ‘Monokote’ Covering $0.03/Sq Ft

[Hank GB Z]

I don't recall what paint Don used. It may have been latex house paint he thinned a bit and sprayed with a sprayer. It was a whole thing, he made a spray booth in his shower in his tiny apartment in lower haight. I came to the conclusion that so-lite was worth the price difference of Doculam but now we can't get So lite....


Hank

 

[JohnT]

I think the AMA stands for Academy of Model Aeronautics. Their magazine is called Model Aviation.

Konrad, you are absolutely correct. If I had not been so lazy as to not look at one of my current magazines . . .

In other news, ran across this video I had seen about applying LF to foam. Looks like he's working on a foam D-EFUN Cub. Sets hi Monkote Iron to the highest heat setting!

John

 

[Konrad]

Not all foam is the same. That Cub is made from EPO. Most folks (well of my gereation) think of foam as being polystyrene.

 

[Wayne]

There are high temp and low temp films!!

Also, those old school irons are all over the place in terms of temps. Think they were calibrated with a sledge hammer on a Friday night. Never seen any consistency from them.

 

[Konrad]

There are high temp and low temp films!!

In Laminating Films?
It has been my experience that LF are a higher heat film than Monokote.

There are irons that look like hobby irons but with much higher heat ranges for industrial applications.

 

[Wayne]

Yep. For example the CP and DI films we sell are both low temp films, but the CP in general is a little lower temp than the DI. Normal LF for the large format graphics industry is a high temp adhesive. Typical heat ranges for different LF range from about 180 and go up to around 300F. This is the adhesive temp range. To shrink the film you are looking at even higher temps.

When using the thicker films, even more heat is needed to activate the adhesive, or work very slowly.

 

[JohnT]

Love it or hate it, I found some great ideas for LF on RCGroups - Doculam and Laminating films for model covering
A couple of ideas from the first couple of pages stood out, including dye . . .

• You could paint the frame work and let it show through the clear material.
• You could apply the material, then paint the "inside" and what you see is the frame work in balsa colour on the outside.
• Weldbond glue, painted on the balsa and allowed to dry , allows you to iron the mylar material down.
• Higher temperatures seems to allow it to "stick" better.
• Doculam can be dyed with Rit fabric dye in hot/boiling water giving translucent colours. The heat from boiling water is below the glue melt and doculam shrinkage temp so it is not effected.
• I really like using the permanent purple glue sticks as an adhesive for covering. (Purple because you can see where you are putting it - they dry clear.) Glue stick responds very well to a heat iron - I put the covering on the framework while the glue is still slightly tacky and pull it tight before the application of low to barely moderate heat. The heat from the iron melts the tacky glue right into the weave or grain of the covering material
• Another test, mylar has been applied over the silk span using Weldbond and a hot iron.
• This procedure will save having to paint and fuel proof the surface, since only the mylar (could also use Doculam) is exposed.

Also found a 'dead' link for a site from Paul L Daniels. The given link (don't bother to click on it) - http://www.pldaniels.com/flying/balsa/using-laminating-film-for-models.html
However, The Internet Archive Wayback Machine had backups of the original site:
A guide to using laminating film for Radio Controlled Model Aircraft