Document laminating material

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Ed Kettler
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Document laminating material

Post by Ed Kettler »

I bought a roll of the Duck brand clear document laminating material to see how it would work for covering 3696 planes. These are my initial impressions, subject to developing better techniques

Pros:
1. No seams on major pieces like wings (compared to tape)
2. Weight gain 1.0-1.5 ounces per wing.
3. Covers quickly.
4. Relatively cheap compared to Monokote etc.


Cons (compared to tape):
1. Low tack requires some other method (3M77?) to adhere to the foam
2. Care must be taken removing the backing not to pinch the covering and the backing paper, as this will cause an unremovable crease in the plastic.
3. You need to use a covering mitt with the soft outer to smooth out the wrinkles when using a heat gun. It may be better to use an iron and not try the gun. What seemed to work the best was to heat the plastic from the leading edge and smooth towards the trailing edge
4. Need to develop technique for using heat gun with this material. It behaves differently from tape and other covering materials.

Not giving up on it yet, will try some other approaches tomorrow. I will also be evaluating painting techiques to see what works.
crash_out
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Post by crash_out »

I just wonder how close that is to the Doculam I used to get with the Mountain Models kits. It was pretty easy to work with on the wood frame models, just didn't stretch very much. What I used didn't have a backing either.

By weight gain do you mean it was lighter or heavier than tape? It must be heavier duty stuff than what I am familiar with-what I used was slightly heavier than So-lite but not nearly as heavy as Econo/Ultracote.
crash_out
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Post by crash_out »

http://www.laminatorwarehouse.com/laminating_film.shtml

Here is an online source for what replaced Doculam. It's a 1.5 mil clear gloss. Cost is determined by what width roll you get, and minumum order is 2 rolls. At 500' per roll, iit ought to last a long time!
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Ed Kettler
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Post by Ed Kettler »

Weight gain was from basic foam to covered on a 36" wing; not compared to tape. Sorry for the lack of clarity. I'll fix that in a second.

There is a thread over in the slope soaring section of RCGroups that has some new covering material http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=790302 that looks promising for combat. I've sent an email asking if it has been tested with blue/pink foam, what paints work, etc.
Alex Treneff
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Post by Alex Treneff »

Full Bi-di tape only added 2.0 ounces to my Me-109, so it seems to be a pretty good strength-to-weight covering.
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