John Laird

It does - I give it 2 or 3 coats of 50/50 dope thinners- which is enough to water and dirt proof it.

I have used doped polyster dress lining - that was quite heavy - would have been a bit lighter over mylar but still on heavy side. I then moved onto chiffon - much lighter material - over mylar. I doped it on dry - might have been better doping on wet to minimise wrinkles. The blue vagabond came out very nice with that covering. The cerise red enlarged vagabond was also covered with chiffon but it wrinkled slightly. Finally, I now use polyester faux silk - probably lightest of all. Also a very close weave, so it doesn't need much dope to weather seal especially over mylar. Cost of the silk is about £2 / running metre 40/60" wide. Shrinking thinned dope used was 40% dope/60% thinners or thereabouts. I covered my big 96" span Cumulus with polyspan - the wings were very strong and stiff - and the light covering was quite adequate for the large model. However thru time, the doped polyspan gradually shrunk and the top covering started to split. Being naturally lazy, I put a layer of doculam - mylar - over the top of the polyspan and that did the trick and also gave instant waterproofing. I am not sure about putting it over a material such as faux silk as shrinking the doculam over the material might cause material underneath to wrinkle. I attach a link to my blog on RCGroups vintage forum which illustrates some of my models with the coverings described above. There are links in the blog to some of the model builds for more detail. Note that all the materials are polyester based which goes well with dope. I think all the solartex coverings were polyester based. You can heat shrink the material to tighten it up before doping and also after doping if any wrinkles develop. https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/member.php?u=153227 hope this is useful John

I agree with above comments re the slec one - too flexible. I use a biro to mark slot , cut the slot and then reuse the biro to indent the balsa to partially inset hinges . The more solid slot marker in Goldberg kits works quite well as well, doing both the marking and the hinge insetting. john

Any comment on Popham ? . I am going there today

I got my white faux silk at fabricland - priced at £1.45 / metre 114 cm wide. might be one near you , if not they do mail order but check postage against amount purchased.

Attached are some photos of my Frog Zephyr enlarged to 66" span for R/C. It is covered in doped on polyester faux silk over laminating film. Less dope is required over the film which reduces the amount needed to seal the silk which has a close weave anyway. Laminating film is used as it comes with a light coating of glue to attach it to the frame. I then heat shrink the film to tighten up to stiffen the frame and take out any wrinkles. The faux silk is cut oversize and doped directly onto the film using thinned dope. Dope onto the excess material since when it dries, I cut it off leaving about 1/8" excess. I smear a tiny amount of Impex fast tack onto this excess and press it onto the frame. It wont stick. This is simply to ensure both sides have the smear of tack. Allow to dry - at least 15 mins, then use a modelling iron to heat and press the material down onto the frame to seal the edges. Another coat of thinned dope (30/70 dope/thinners) just to dirt proof the covering. Any wrinkle can generally be shrunk out with the iron. I iron - low heat - any wrinkles on the faux silk before using it. The impex glue is a dress making glue and has a spout to apply it - use a thin pin to pierce the nozzle to minimze the amount applied. Easier then balsaloc. One wing of the Zephyr had been covered with doped on white tissue and you can see the difference in translucence

I have moved on from poly dress lining to polyester faux silk - a bit lighter and easier to work with. the white is stunning. I will post a pic later. price is much same at less than £2 per running meter.

test ignore this entry

Is the WBV fuelproof against diesel or glo fuel ??

try doped lightweight over doculam or mylar - it will be both stronger and lighter as the combined cover needs less thinned dope

Sal, agreed john

Sal, I am thinking of selling mine as part of downsizing on models. It has an OS 70 4 stroke engine and will have 3 servos and battery but not Rx, I live on edge of new forest near southampton. Model can be seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu1GnqOwC_4

Transparent red shows all the way up into the thermals - great colour

Now I have the hang of loading utube videos, I thought i would slip in the one of the standard size Vagabond covered in blue chiffon over mylar which came out very nice and as you can see is nicely translucent mirroring a doped tissue covering but very much stronger. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=957ylA8daZU&t=244s

I thought I had loaded the links properly using the link icon - trying again https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4gQV4tYLWg for the Outlaw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS758KRCXII&t=8s for the big Vagabond