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Building Tips and technical articles. => Paint and finishing => Topic started by: Vincent Judd on April 20, 2018, 05:34:01 AM
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I've always liked the appearance of the transparent coverings so I decided to cover my new Imitation profile with it to show off all the nice geodetic structures in the flaps, stab and elevators.
The transparent covering does come with some issues that cause you to put on your thinking cap however. Everywhere you overlap, everywhere you touch it with an iron, it changes color, becomes darker. Not a big deal on the stab, elevators and flaps, you can pretty much seal the edges and use a heat gun to shrink the rest. They came out really nice. The fuselage is where the problem really became evident. I was going to try and cover each side with one piece, but with all the curves and twists and turns, that became futile frustration. I ended up piecing it together. I now have some obvious darker spots, mostly on the top and bottom. I will design my trim scheme to cover most of it up and the rest, well, I'm just not going to worry about.
I think if I ever use transparent again, I'll cover the fuselage in a solid color, at least that's my thinking right now. I'll see what it looks like when I'm finished.
Not a complaint, just an observation and hopefully a helpful tip to someone else considering transparent covering.
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Yes, transparent iron ons do leave some things to be desired. Yes the over laps do appear darker. I guess that is why I never use the stuff on fuselages. I have tried the butting up together of some of the material and it works great until the iron gets too hot in one location. Looking at the picture yours looks great. D>K
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Thanks very much for the compliment. The back, flat part of the fuselage was relatively easy, however, when I got to the curved nose section it became much more difficult and I just don't like the appearance. Too many overlaps, too many dark places in places where I can't cover it with the trim scheme I have in mind.
I'm in the process of stripping the blue off and making the fuselage solid white, stay tuned. The white will be easy, it won't discolor on seams and heated spots.
I really love working with Ultracote, it's very easy to shape with a little heat.
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Stripped the transparent blue off of the fuselage and rudder. Just not happy with it.
Plain white came out pretty nice, just have to add some trim colors.