Building Tips and technical articles. > Paint and finishing

Iron-on finish newbie

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Dave Moritz:
My first serious attempt at this and am using Ultracote. The instructional videos make it look easy, but man-o-man is it a challenge! Let me see if I got this right- if you want it to stick, you apply heat; if you want it to unstick, you apply heat; if you want it to stretch, you apply heat; and if you want it to shrink, you apply heat.  So let it be written, so let it be done. Ha!

Dave Mo…

Shorts,David:
Hi Dave, it's exciting to see all the new interest. There is a lot to be caught, rather than taught. Watching a good video is worth much more than reading directions. Make sure you have an iron and a gun, and a glove isn't a bad idea.
But, the sequence really is important. What plane are you building?

Ken Culbertson:

--- Quote from: Shorts,David on January 21, 2022, 04:25:49 PM ---Hi Dave, it's exciting to see all the new interest. There is a lot to be caught, rather than taught. Watching a good video is worth much more than reading directions. Make sure you have an iron and a gun, and a glove isn't a bad idea.
But, the sequence really is important. What plane are you building?

--- End quote ---
One tip - these iron on's don't like sealed wood.  A coat, maybe 2 but you need super smooth dust free "raw" balsa if you want it to stay stuck.  The tip - VACUME before you apply.  Glue stuck to balsa dust doesn't last long.

Ken

944_Jim:
I'm trying to wrap my head around this (no pun intended)...My experience has been only dope and tissue. Please bear with me.

So I have an iron, and I have a saran wrap (or whatever we call the iron-on wrapper) with glue on it. Well, "Some"-Kote, SLC,.etc.

But the wood is supposed to be somewhat porous but smooth and dust free so the glue seeps in a bit?

And what is Stix-it for? I have a can of that, but no mention of additional adhesive for the glue-backed wrappers.
Or is Stix-it for the non-adhesive backed sorta-woven synthetic coverings? I'm trying to understand the tools for the job because I have never used them.

I actually thought the wood should be sealed and smooth, and Stix-it was for glueless coverings no matter what they are...even tissue/silkspan if so inclined.

Thanks for sticking through this with me.

Ken Culbertson:
One thing that rarely gets passed along is that MonoKote is a great base for paint.  I learned that from a real MonoKote expert.  Everything on this plane, including the fuselage and wheel pants is white MonoKote and Rustoleum.  It is super easy to mask and the tape never pulls.  Before and after on my latest. 

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