TEOSAWKI foam LE covering questions

[Angelo Smyth]

I have a TEOSAWKI that I'm rebuilding. Originally, I had used 100% Monokote on it, leading edge foam and all. It worked....but mostly. Where I had difficulty with it was on the foam LE. I had to strike a very delicate heating iron balance between activating the covering adhesive, and not melting the underlying foam. I was not always completely successful in this regard. I've read where guys would apply a lightweight paper covering to the foam. But my questions are: What exactly is this lightweight "paper"? How is this adhered to the foam? Won't using dope for fuel-proofing it destroy the foam?? I know that for model aircraft constructed with foam, that sometimes a balsa covering is used over that foam, but the original TEO doesn't employ that. Anyone here that has built a TEOSAWKI chime-in here? Thanks.....

[Dan McEntee]

  For the foam, you can apply layers of thinned Elmer's glue and silk span to build up a shell. You could paint that, or sand smooth and them apply a coat of Stix-It or one of the other iron adhesives and then apply the monokote or favorite other iron on. EconoKote has a lower sealing and shrinking point and will work with foam.
  Type at you later,
  Dan McEntee

[Brent Williams]

SLC film from Phil Cartier.

[Dane Martin]

I am now the proud owner of one of these bad boys also. It's essentially built like a Russian or Ukrainian combat plane. I've actually used construction paper, regular school paper, brown butcher paper and parchment paper to recover these types of leading edges. Like Dan said, my favorite way to adhere is white glue, or weak spray adhesive like elmers spray adhesive.

Brent is right about the SLC, it's lower temp to shrink, but I'd still recommend the paper over the LE.

[Keith Renecle]

I've built  lot of paper covered foam wings and combat leading edges, and you can use almost any paper. I've used newsprint, flip-chart paper and certain gift wrap as well. Medium weigh tissue is very easy to cover with and use white glue thinned 60/40 with water. The best thing to put the glue on and also spread the paper nicely, is a sponge. Plastic covering like Monokote is hard to use because of the heat required so use a low heat film if you don't want to melt the foam. A Topflite heat gun works very well for this.

Keith R

[Angelo Smyth]

Thanks all for answering my q's and the advice - The "TEO" will be up in no time now! 

[Target]

Simply spraying the foam with 3M77 works also.
As they changed the formulation in some areas, read the can first. If it has Acetone listed, you have to make sure that only a light mist is applied to the foam, or better yet, you could spray just the section of covering that will be on the foam.
You can let the 3M77 dry completely, then use the covering iron as usual.
The 3M77 should help you a lot with adhesion to foam.
Always make sure the foam is as dust free as possible before trying to stick covering to it.'

Hope this helps you.

R,
Target