Shrink Film Covering Technique

[Andy J]

I certainly purchased Balsa lock last year, so assume its available. Alternatively you could try Eze Kote which hardens the balsa.

[Bob Cotsford]

Andy, no and yes in that order. If you try to cover over existing film you will be spending the next week popping bubbles and ironing them flat. There's also the issue of whether or not the old colour will show through the new one, not to mention the extreme sin of adding unnecessary weight at the tail. If the old covering is overlapped by the glue joint then I think I'd try to strip the covering leaving 6mm or so along the glue line and iron the new covering onto that.

Tosh, you could try laying kitchen towel on the affected area and running a really hot iron over it. Washing with acetone would be worth a try too, possibly before ironing it. When I ran glow motors I used Solarlac Clearcoat on suspected oily areas, it seemed to work ok as long as it's not oozing oil.

[Andy J]

Knew the answer before I asked the question Bob. Just confirms what I thought!

[Ron Gray]

Sorry Andy, I missed this thread and the question about covering film into concave curves such as wing fillets. What I do is cut a strip of film wide enough to cover the fillet and a bit of the fuse. Then I use various tubes and round bars from aluminium and copper and heat those up to apply the heat to the film in the curve, 15mm copper tube is excellent and you can form it into different profiles for areas such as tailplane / fuse junctions. To heat the tubes I use a hot air gun. Takes a bit of getting used to but works for me!

[Andy J]

Thanks Ron, finally managed to get a half decent surface using a standard iron and running a separate strip over the wing fillet. Like the idea of using copper pipes though.

Bob.. Took the covering off the tail this afternoon. Came off really easily so shouldn't have worried. Least I can now repair the minor imperfections in the balsa skin.