I try various techniques to finish vintage combat wings for Combat Graffiti. Once I bought some "dress lining" from a local fabric store here, but never go around to trying it as it seemed thick to me. I have a voodoo that got smacked by a buddy and it used to be covered with super monokote. When I finally got all of that stuff off and the wing prepped, I tried the lining on it. I was sceptical even after I had it all doped on. I used glue to hold it to the wingtips along with pins and applied it dry in a single wrap on the inboard and outboard sides instead of 4 panels. I then shrank it with water to take out any small wrinkles. After the first coat of nitrate, I was sure this was a mistake, it looked like a fuzzy slipper. I sanded the wing with light sandpaper and it smoothed out. I had a pooch at the tips where I had slit the covering and overlapped the covering right at the start of the wingtip. It sanded out nicely so I put another coat on and sanded that. By the end of the 3rd coat it was looking pretty nice, like old days silkspan, so I shot it with buyterate and the look was very nice and not fragile like silkspan at all.

This was a "medium" thickness material, as I thought the thin was too weak by pulling it until it began to separate. I bought 6 ft for 2.50 or so. I'm currently building a James Mears "Raunchy" and will cover it with the same.


K

I think it's the polyester stuff.....believing that, I attempted to heat shrink it and fired up the heat gun. Big-o mistake-o........it seemed to be going ok and while not shrinking like I had hoped, I thought it was getting tighter when one spot burst into flames! It was a smallish dot and I was lucky to get it out in time before it really lit up. What is the material you are using, how heavy is it? Light medium or heavy.

Thanks


Ken

By the way the combat wing I used Poly-span under the mylar.