Coloured dope

[Rick Tee]

Any one know of a good supplier of coloured dope? can only find clear and thinners apart from Flair who don't trade direct.

[Alan Gorham_]

PS Aeroproducts sell Brodak coloured dope.

 See:

http://www.psaeroproducts.com/

Hope that helps.

[Bob Howard]

Be careful with Brodak. It is a Butyrate dope, not Nitrate like the normal stuff. It is superb stuff, but the two types are not compatible. If I remember rightly, you can use Butyrate over nitrate (not recommended though), but not vice versa, as the nitrate pickles the butyrate.

Brodak produce their own Butyrate clear dope. I would use that, together with their special thinner.

Butyrate is claimed to be more fuel resistant than Nitrate.

Alternatively, why not try common or garden Solarlac. Most model shops stock it, plenty of colours to choose from, it is flexible & fuel resistant. The only thing I would suggest is, use a retardant cellulose thinner from your friendly local car paint store (e.g Autocolours). The Solarlac thinner is OK, but it dries a bit too quickly for my liking. If you are using an airbrush, the paint can be dry before it hits the surface!

Solarlac can be applied over Nitrate dope, but I have also tried using Clearcoat instead of dope. Seems to work OK on sheeted surfaces (e.g. with tissue). It does not shrink much, which helps to avoid distortion of the wood, but I doubt if it would be any good for nylon or tissue over an open structure.

[Rick Tee]

Thanx for the heads up there Bob, would have been fine for my purpose but the psaeroproducts does not have an online shop and has not responded to email (over a week). After some experimenting i have decided to paint with clear dope and then use enamels for colour and polyurethane for fuel proofing.

[Bob Howard]

What are you painting?

[Rick Tee]

R/C Models built with cardboard and foam/veneer wings.

[Bob Howard]

Great - love to see some piccies.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Rick Tee]

Seems cellulose paints were the subject of an import ban or something last year sometime, so though you may still be able to get some it may be a bit like the nicad thing, only until supplies run out. Anyway gone for the Solarlac paints at least they should be future proof. Now where did i put that camera....

[Rick Tee]

Its an own design high wing trainer, hybrid build; cardboard fuselage, built up tail and foam wing (not yet built.) This is the MkII first one flies great, some minor improvements and better quality, lighter cardboard.

[Bob Howard]

A looked into this, and was told that cellulose is really only banned for major use (e.g. car manufacture etc). It is still available for "specialist" use. This includes, for example, hobby applications and restoration of vehicles originally finished in cellulose.

I had an interesting chat  recently with the manager of my local car paint suppliert. Many years ago, I finished a model in Ford Arizona Gold (flash swine that I am). It looked great, and showed up well in the air.

A couple of years ago, I finished an Acro-Wot in the same shade, but using automotive acrylics. It was nothing like as bright, so such so that orientation was tricky anything less than bright sunshine. When I asked the chap if he had any ideas why, he suggested that acrylic has lower levels of reflectifvity than cellulose.

I am now trying to find a way to get all the paint off, down to either the glass cloth or, better still, the wood. I learned a long time ago (the hard way) that using  paint stripper (or thinners for that matter) on a foam wing is not a smart idea! Short of taking a 6 month holiday from work and buying a job lot of wet & dry - any ideas?

[Mike Rolls]

If you can stand the extra weight, why not add a coat of high gloss clear?

Mike

[Bob Howard]

It is overweight now (like the builder/pilot!).

Actually, I fuel-proofed it all with Flair Spectrum, The problem is not the glossiness of the top coat, but the way that light reflects from the base colour. Too much light is absorbed.

Incidentally, I had problems with this particular finishing method. The Spectrum does not seem to bond well to the acrylic, and it is peeling. I was surprised at this, as others in my club use spectrum with excellent results - just an unlucky mis-match I suppose.

This is another reason why I need to strip the model and respray - using a more sensible colour scheme!

I am now using Profilm on all new models!