Seal the seams with waterbase poly and hit the covering with a heat gun....you'll find it becomes quite presentable...

Not making excuses for SIG or Brodak or anyone else that makes ARF's. I think a little of the average "assemblers" frustration (count me as one!) is that the covering layout (patterns, colors, etc.) is usually excellent. The problem is that the covering isn't sticking down and is wrinkly. The instructions always say to shrink the covering, but I usually find that the stuff doesn't reall shrink very well (at least not at the recommended temperatures). Maybe it is me (possibly). And it always starts to come off in the engine area of the fuse.
Anyway, being so close, but so far away at one time just is irritating. Not too sure what to do but as someone said, build it (kit/scratch) of cover it (ARC) yourself. Maybe that is the correct answer.

WWWarbird, Keep on keepin on, you should be able to get the covering to an acceptable level, if it's as bad as Alans, heat it off and put on some good Ultracoat.
I think ARC are good for not only being able to get a better covering job but you can see what is under that poor covering and make mods prior to covering without messing up and having to match the junk the Chinese manufacturer put on it.
Alan, I think your fer sure looking to have to recover.
Had the same problems with my Brodak Cardinal.
Wish someone in the USA would make a working mans affordable (not custom built plane) ARF, they would cost more but I think they would make them right.
Rotsa Ruck to both of you.

The covering worked out fairly well for me, following directions helped. Outlining areas with a trim iron at high temperature, sticking down edges, was the start. Followed by going over the entire plane with a full sized iron, sticking and shrinking covering as needed. I used a heat gun to tighten bays, aiming the gun so that wing bubbles were blown to the bays, as much as possible. On solid sections I went over the entire structure, first outlining kote edges, then shrinking up middle.  When necessary I used the point of a #11 to release trapped air, sealing over the puncture. When finished almost all of the imperfections looked decent. The rudder/fues trans wouldn't seal down, left it alone. So far no covering has lifted. A black outline stripe on the canopy loosened and flopped off. Can be easily replaced. Also a thin white stripe pulled off and was lost. Maybe 25-30 flights so far. Big problem was the soft ply on the nose. Lead to major vibration issues discussed on the PF fp40 thread. When plane first went to the field the PF got lots of compliments. Even at Brodak people thought enough of the plane's looks to make positive comments. Plane looks somewhat cruder now, mostly because of the nose vibe issues and the various fixes tried. Also had to cut into the wing covering when the bolt holding leadout guide worked loose and came out. Watch out for that. Your parts bin may not have the right metric bolt.  Setting up a Cardinal required a similar covering drill.

This just in...

 All covering gripes aside, I finally got out to the field the other day for the maiden flight on the Primary Force. I'm using a Saito .30. First two flights were with a glass Zingali 9-6 three blade and were way too slow, with NO line tension above 40 degrees or so. With no other adjustments, and swapping to a wood Master Airscrew 10-5, things went MUCH better and the model then flew better with every flight, as the engine started to come in. I'm thinking the final answer will be a wood 10-4 or 10-5 once the engine is completely broken in. This is a VERY GOOD flying ARF.

 BTW, why the Zingali three blade you ask? I tried that prop because the main reason I'm flying the P-Force is to break in two new Saito .30's for a 60" span profile PBY Catalina stunter I'm working on, and I would like to use three bladed props on it for a more scale effect.

What rpm were you running with the Zingali 9-6? what fuel? are you using the stock RC carb? While you are at it what line length and what were your lap times?

My experience with Saitos suggest you are going the wrong way on pitch. Try a wood 9-7 and set the carb for about 8200 on the ground.

Actually I'm a bit surprised the Zingali didn't work. Might just be too much load and the engine wasn't able to turn it at the RPM needed. If I were going to use a 3 blade I would probably go to a 8.5 - 6.5 (if you can find one).

With the carb wide open what RPM can you get with this prop? How are you setting the needle?

I would put the Zingali back on and try a tank of PowerMaster YS 20-20 fuel, (if you are not already using YS 20-20 you should be). If you can't get to around 8500 with the Zingali start cutting it down 1/4 inch at a time till you get there and then fly it. Also check the pitch and make sure it is really a 6 pitch prop (very important).

If you will answer my questions and follow my sugestions I can just about promise you I can get you to a setup that not only will work but impress the heck out of you the first time you fly it.

We should probably move this to the engines section if you are willing to continue..

Thank you for the suggestions Bob! Being in Minnesota, I'll just have to keep it all in mind for now because I won't be able to do any more quality testing until spring again. 

Ya I understand, we are about in the same boat here, 20 deg this morning with a high in the low 50's. Not my idea of a fun time to be playing with trying to get an airplane trimmed or an engine/prop working. Whenever you are ready let me know and well get that puppy humming..

From what I remember, the Zingali 9-6 3 bld is no where near 6" true pitch, it's much less.  It's been a while since we used one, but that is what we found back then.

The new Master Airsrew 10-7 (or is it 11-7??) are pretty much the same way.  We pitched those and they are closer to 5 (or less).  Found that these props qwork well in a wet two engine set up!

What I was suspecting, why I asked what the RPM was and to be sure and check the pitch. If he would have came back and said the Saito was turning that prop at 9 or 10 grand and his airspeed was too slow I would have had a pretty good idea that it wasn't really a 6 pitch prop.

Another detail is that I don't think our definition of pitch is constant from prop to prop and our "Pitch Meters". So for example, my Prather pitch gauge gets its value from a aluminum straight edge against the bottom of the prop. Even a Clark Y airfoil's true pitch is larger than this measured value.

Here's an example. I have a APC 11x5.5 thin electric prop on my E-Nobler-Arf. I run it at 9000 rpm. Straight and level flight is ~54 mph. If you calculate the "pitch speed" (=pitch*rpm converted to mph) you would calculate ~47 mph. It isn't a miracle prop, it just means our standard for pitch has various meanings to different people. I guess that relative pitches for the same manufacturer prop model probably scale. However if you change manufacturers, or prop models, you shouldn't be surprised if it doesn't work out exactly.