So I'm just about ready to silkspan the balsa and sheet my ship, but I've drawn a blank on how to do it. I understand that silkspan is no longer available, but I've heard that tissue paper makes a good replacement. Is what I heard true? Now how is the tissue paper attached to the balsa? It seems that everybody uses dope to paint the "whatever you use" to the balsa. What kind of dope is that? I've also heard that Tite-Bond mixed 50/50 with water makes a good replacement for dope. Is it, because I'd like to do it that way. After the the balsa is silkspannned, you just mark where the ribs and contact cement it to the hull, right? Thanks,
Tissue paper works, single ply institutional TP is reported to work as well. I adhere my sheeting with weldwood contact cement and find it vastly preferable to CA. I use nitrate dope for the silkspan to balsa adhesion and have no experience with other agents to share.
Yes, nitrate dope is the best stuff for putting cloth / paper onto wood. Just look carefully at the can label so you don't wind up with a bright yellow boat (see the Baden Refit thread by McSpuds)
Ok, thanks. I think I got the idea of what I need to do. The sheeting page that bgt0990 posted says that they used Super 77 spray. I have that, so I'm going to give it a try.
traditionally, both some rulesets, all BG ones I think? allow only one side, but IRCWCC has no issue with both sides. You can either cover both sides of the balsa before applying to the hull, or apply the outer silkspan after applying the balsa to the hull. Doing the outer silkspan last has the benefit of allowing you to seal the edges of the balsa with the silkspan.
I just got done re-doing my VDT for Nats. I used the 77 techique for the first side, After drying I used weldwood to adhere the silkspan side to the boat. After all was done I lightly sanded it and then applied the outer silkspan over all using Laquer. Nate taught me to lay down the Laquer, let it dry. Then lay on silkspan and go over it with thinned (50/50) laquer. Works great, very few wrinkle or bubbles.
Just a note about Silkspan, Weldwood and the use of same: Weldwood is good for attaching the wood to the hull (ribs and frame), but not a good patch material. The result if used to patch is a "rubbery" hull skin that won't pass the drop test, and yes I will be checking. At one Nationals I have attended a couple battlers were using Weldwood contact cement to patch, proudly declaring that "it's a 50/50 mix of Weldwood and MEK". After three days of battle these hulls would not pass at all. Other hulls that used lacquer and Dope passed without issue, so the old stuff works better to patch. I know that some clubs have a less rigorous enforcement of rules during nationals and that is OK but in the IRCWCC you can expect your hulls to be penetrable the whole week of Nationals.
I remember someone being drop-tested at Nats 2012 that was patching with weldwood. Failed. It looked pretty obvious that the hull was getting tougher, the weldwood was turning it obviously yellow where patching was taking place.
When you take 550+ holes in the first two days of NATS that helps make the skin too hard too. There were 7-8 ships last year that took 700-800 holes, I'd bet they all would have failed a drop test, no matter their patching.
Tissue is less dense than wood so if they patched with tissue then it would have been softer. If a panel is blown out maybe time to put new wood in its place, with contact cement it takes minutes. Net result is that being too hard isn't a valid excuse, at least on my side of the pond.
Silkspan has not been available for a long time now. There have been hints of tissue paper, or toilet paper or ??? What is being used most commonly? What is best? What are you using? Keith
