Sig seems to have stopped making colored dop. You can still get their clear stuff... Only on special order around here. There is another manuf I forget the name... but they sell in 2oz bottles only & don't have grey. WHAT IS EVERYONE USING?? Any good manufs that I've not heard of yet?
I've been using weld wood contact cement for the past few years. Use it straight or thin it down 50-50 with MEK. Works great and is easy to get.
I don't use it for the patching as we found over time it makes the hull impenetrable. For that I use ducos cement or lacquer (deft) Rubber cement works good for the balsa sheeting to the hull.
How is one supposed to tell how crunchy a hull is by looking at a picture of it???? Or are you saying you dont have a clue cause you haven't used it in battle yet?
I am assuming that you believe that the finished product would look like there was sand added to the paint. The texture would be very bumpy. The actual finish came out quite smooth! Not glossy smooth as it would need to be for an aircraft finish, but decent enought for a ship.
That is not what he means. What he means is that the hull gets brittle or "crunchy" so that when rounds hit it you get fractures and chunks rather than holes.
Exactly, Soft hulls when hit hole nicely and often the resulting hole is smaller than the bb that made it, crunchy or brittle hulls tend to produce larger holes when struck. It depends greatly on the quality of balsa used and also the age of the hull, however different dopes/glues/paints etc used on the hull can also effect it. (generally making it worse)
From what I understand, most, if not all of the folks in my group use this method. I have not seen any cracking thus far. Only perfectly round holes. And I do believe that I have the photos to prove it.
What a very polite and welcoming response to someone who you knew was a relative newcomer. Back in the late 90's I asked members of several clubs what they used for applying silkspan. I then spend a couple of weeks trying each techique out and seeing how well they worked. I've used the 50/50 Tightbond/water mix ever since; as have most of the captains in our club. We are a small club but half a dozen skippers, most with multiple boats, using a technique for ten years is a reasonable test. It has done fantastically well on all the ships that have used it. It is cheap, available at most hardware stores, has no toxic fumes, and produces an excellant surface for painting. It seems to hold up well in combat and is very easily patched pond-side. It's too bad you were so unwilling to listen to the new guy... it turns out he knows something you didn't.
It was a honest response to a topic with "see the picture to see how crunchy it is". That being said (and willing to hear new things), how does it hold up to drying on wet ships? What is the drying time? (usually we only have 20-30 minutes before we are back battling again) and my final question... Is there a drop test performed at these events? I am always open to new ideas. In the IRCWCC, we use ambroid glue, ducos cement and laquer. The thing that I wonder about is how hard does the hull get, how many times can it be used until it gets hard, and how does it hole? Posting a few pictures will show how it holes. Without a drop test on it, the other questions are speculation. We have penetrated 1/8 balsa and luan doors in the past so a "BB's make holes in it argument" won't really tell the whole story. Thanks for sharing ideas and please feel free to respond with info. I don't know anybody who wouldn't like to find a cheap readily available alternative to the products we use. Perhaps I will find time to test it in the future. It is also one of the ideas I have never heard of until now..... Rob A. IRCWCC VP NYBG Moderator
Tone is difficult in online forums. I only learned of this post after a few people warned me that one of our newer members had been slapped down over here. It helps if we all remember that (a) other people might take our tone offensively and (b) we might be reading a tone worse that the writer intended. We are a Big Guns club so we don't have an effective drop test. However, having observed ships that used dope and used the wood glue mixture we have not noticed a difference. However, Big Guns cannons hit pretty hard (1/8" is a standard hull thickness for battleships) so we probably have a higher tolerance for increases in strength... I believe that our thinnest skins (1/16") are twice the norm for Fast Guns (1/32" IIRC) Once the tightbond is dry it is waterproof. I done some patching with the glue/water mixture in the past but I don't remember how long it took to dry. It was pretty fast but I don't remember how long. You would probably want to experiment with it. We've taken to using 1/2 x 1/2" pieces of masking tape for repairs between sorties. It does not hold up long but is enough to get through the day until you have time for some proper patches.
