Recently I did a few silk planes. I purchased taughtening which I used to assist the shrinkage of the silk. It actually turned out very good and I'm more than pleased with the results. I followed up with lower shrink butyrate. Now a year later, I see some slight horse starving in the leading edge sheeting. I actually expected that due to the lightweight sheeting I used. It's hardly noticeable and this doesn't bother me or the plane. Could I reduce the shrinkage of the balance of  product I still have  by adding more thinner or Dave Brown Flex All?

    It certainly is worth the effort to treat the remaining dope. In the old days they talked about adding castor oil to mixed dope, like so many drops or a teaspoon to a quart or something like that. this was to plasticize the dope and reduce shrinkage. i would use medicinal grade castor for this, or food grade from the grocery store. I really think that is all Flex-All is, castor oil. I didn't do any scientific like testing on it, just going by how it looks in the bottle, to how much they say to use, to doing a 'taste test" putting a drop or two on my tongue. You could just use Flex-All also. Mix up a small batch of dope and add a few drops to it and apply it to a test section and see how it works. I always keep some Flex-All around and use it in my final coats. If using SIG color dope, all their color dopes were based on their low shrink Lite Coat butyrate dope. They stated that in their catalogs.
  Type at you later,
   Dan McEntee

Mr. Dan,

I've heard of "huffing" paints and glues, and the dangers of eating lead-paint chips...but this is the first time I've read of someone drinking paint additives!
 

Mr.Ty,
Given Mr.Dan's surviving ingesting paint additives, is there any chance rejuvenator may relax me? I'd like to know how much to remove about ten-fifteen years of stress (and age).