From: Julio MacWilliams <juliom@cisco.com>
Message-Id: <199705280743.AAA03654@monarch.cisco.com>
Subject: Re: Baidarka Skin
To: baidarka@lists.intelenet.net
Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 00:43:58 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <338BB4C9.6649@alliance.net> from "Russell" at May 28, 97 00:30:01 am
[snip]
> thing I was wondering about has to do do with waht to paint the skin
> with....has anyone tried airplane dope....the stuff fabric coated plains
> were painted with...a friend of mine use to fly the fabric covered
> planes and he said it would shrink the material that covered the
> plane....I'm going to try and locate an aircraft repair facility
> tomorrow that might handle that kind of stuff and see what I can find
> out...again, I just thought someone out there might have tried that
> stuff already...any comments, pro or con would be appreciated...Russell
>
I did that. You can by the aircraft dope at Hobby shops. It is still in
use for model airplanes. $40/gallon.
It shrinks the skin and makes it both flexible and waterproof, but killing
the weave is very difficult. It *stinks* very harmful vapors, get ready for
a fuzz and a headache. I built lots of model airplanes, that is why I was
atracted to aircraft dope. Then I tried the traditional linseed oil coating
and found it to be much easier, healthier and easier to maintain than dope.
A lot cheaper too.
Another good alternative is exterior varnish (varathane), or plain marine
spar varnish, if you are in a hurry and do not want to wait for the linseed
oil to oxidize to a solid state.
- Julio