Nitrate paint

[Juan Valentin]

  Can castor oil be added safely to nitrate to reduce the amount of shrinking? I have added castor oil to butyrate with no problems but was wondering about using it on nitrate for areas that don`t need the shrinking quality of this paint but still want to use it to fill the grain.
                                                                                      Juan

[billbyles]

  Can castor oil be added safely to nitrate to reduce the amount of shrinking? I have added castor oil to butyrate with no problems but was wondering about using it on nitrate for areas that don`t need the shrinking quality of this paint but still want to use it to fill the grain.
                                                                                      Juan

Hi Juan,

While I imagine that the reason you asked about plasticizing nitrate dope is because you have the tautening type on hand, nitrate dope is readily available in non-tautening.  When I use nitrate (admittedly not often and then mostly on full-scale airplanes) if I have only tautening nitrate on hand I use good old Dave Brown's "Flex-All" to plasticize it.  Works fine and even on a full-scale airplane it doesn't take much. 

[Juan Valentin]

   Thanks guys I`m just trying to avoid the starving horse look in a fuse with compound curves and light wood.
                                                                                  Juan