Hello all, I am having trouble determining what to thin the dope with. One guy says laquer thinner, one guys says thinner (big help that one), the instructions on the can say use it straight but an article I read here on the forums says to use thinner as well. I don't really know what to do an I have a whole weekend (as it turns out) to work on my boats. Any help would be appreciated.Thanks Jay
Argh!! dope!! I could never work silkspan well with dope. I used 50/50 titebond and water, (I think) and this worked better for me. It doesn't seem to have the same effect, as it dried the silk tight to the wood... but it is much friendlier to the nose and lungs. Not Bruce
I used a 50/50 combo.Sometimes I use a 60 percent dope 40 percent thinner. You don't want it so thick that you can't get the dope to cover more surface area and goop your brush. On the other hand not too thin so that your brush would literaly fly off the hull with one SWOOP. Half and half will work fine.
Firstly, are you using a nitrate or butyrate dope? If you have a choice, I suggest you go with the nitrate dope; from my experience on both rubber-band and gas-powered airplane models, butyrate dope tends to cause too much shrinkage and thus warpage in the structure being covered. Are you able to find a nitrate thinner? Offhand, I believe I've used paint thinner and MEK to thin out nitrate dope in the past but I'd have to recommend that you try to avoid needing to thin it too much. Like Curt mentioned, you need it to no be too thick that it's difficult to brush but not so thin to the point that things don't stay put.
I have "SIG low shrink butyrate light coat clear dope". Since the butyrate tends to shrink, will thinning it reduce this and since there are different types of dope, what should I use to thin it. This is my first kick at sheeting and since it is my wifes' boat, it would be BAD if it leaked or shrunk or fell apart. Thanks again, J
I'm not sure if/how much that thinner would affect shrinkage. Two coats was enough to warp 1/8" balsa wing ribs. I have found that three coats of unthinned butyrate dope over silkspan has, however, been enough to snap 3/16" wing spars in a rubber band airplane in one situation (perhaps ironically, it was a Hellcat model). I believe that the butyrate dope continues to shrink a bit even after it's "dry" which would help to provide a smooth finish on aircraft models yet potentially cause issues for our purposes here.
