fabric fading on wings

i have a question for the fabric experts. my pa-12 was covered in 1999 and spent the first 2 years in a hangar in canada. it has sat outside at merrill field since then, wing covers in winter, exposed to elements the rest of the time. it is painted in the original pa-12 scheme red and tan with butyrate dope on ceconite. the tops of the wings are fading significantly. dan's aircraft does the maintenance and when i mentioned it they told me it was "oxidation" and that there was some compound i could rub into it to restore the color rather than another layer of dope. anyone have experience with this or any thoughts? rjh

I would say hes taking about rubbing compound basically its liquid sandpaper [although finer] and you can use it by hand [it will take you a long time] or with a buffer much faster but you wont want to hit any high spots[ rib stitches etc] with a buffer and remember your removing paint oxidized it maybe and there is only so much of it on there which if you buff through you could always put some more on it i guess

Have you tried wax?

SB

You can use ultra fine rubbing compound followed by a coat of carnuba wax.

I would use a very fine rubbing compound and see how much dead paint you have to remove. It might be more work than you want to get into. Cobblemaster is right on with carnuba wax. Wax with any silicone will give you hell trying to paint at a later date.

Pigment in any coating is the best blocker to UV light. Many "experts" try to get a better shine in their dope jobs by adding lots of clear dope to the final finish. The clear dope, without the the UV blocking pigment will degrade quickly in the sun and turn dull and fade. Just one more more reason to use a modern coating like Air Tech!!

There is a product line by 3M called Perfect it III. The foam glazing compound does a premo job on making it look good. For tougher jobs use the foam polishing compound. I haven't found anything better for butyrate dope. Meguires No. 7 is excellent silicone free wax. You will need a low rpm polisher and the hook it foam waffle pads they recommend. It goes fast. They make a dark and a light product for paints.

http://multimedia.mmm.com/mws/mediawebserver.dyn?ZZZZZZHFRjmZsB&ZlB&ZZZ_K_jayyyyx-

if you use the carnuba wax, mothers, and meguires, are the only ones i know that make one without silicone nowadays. but it must say PURE carnuba wax on the can or it has silicone. but alot of people use use the silicone, and if you have to paint, you got some extra work ahead of you.

Ray Stits recommended rejuvenating with RJ-1200 Rejuvenator every 8 to 10 years.

Air Tech

Phil Kite said:

Pigment in any coating is the best blocker to UV light. Many "experts" try to get a better shine in their dope jobs by adding lots of clear dope to the final finish. The clear dope, without the the UV blocking pigment will degrade quickly in the sun and turn dull and fade. Just one more more reason to use a modern coating like Air Tech!!

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Air Tech doesn't impress me at all. Every plane I've seen covered with it that I've thumped with my finger felt like a loose drum, floppy. The fabric just flops back and forth in any large areas. The finish is smooth with no fabric weave showing which means "thick coating", and that means "heavy". When I thump my ceconite with dope, it sounds like a bongo drum, tight! When you run your finger nail across the weave it sounds like a zipper, i.e. thin coatings, which translates to light weight. Patching a polyurethane finish is a real pain compared to dope (I own both and patch both). Show quality yes! Practical on a real bush plane, no! This is just my opinion so take it as that. Crash

i have been waxing the plane 1-2 times a year with meguires. is this too much, not enough? i will try the rubbing compound this fall, too busy with whats left of the alaska summer for right now. thanks for the advice.
rjh

which means "thick coating", and that means "heavy

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I thought Airtec was something like 2 coats primer and 2 coats paint? Wouldnt that be lighter than 12 coats of dope?

kinda on the same subject here... i'm a new owner of an old cub which has a new cover on it. My first rag and tube aircraft. What is the best thing to clean it with? and should I be waxing it to protect the finish? With my old 170 I often just used Pledge, did pretty well and would wax with something else like once a year. But how do you keep the belly clean etc on a fabric airplane? Just plain water doesn't work too well.

Just covered a PA16 with Air Tec and you can still see the weave and it is tight as a drum. We all know dope continues to shrink over time. I like the repairability of dope and Polytone but also like the ease of cleaning polyurethane. I wax once a year to make it easier to get the grit and grime off. Sporty's sells a good product for the belly called Carbon X. Pour it in the water or spray some on the grimy stuff and it cuts it very well.

idscub said:

I thought Airtec was something like 2 coats primer and 2 coats paint? Wouldnt that be lighter than 12 coats of dope?

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Not necessarily. The deciding factor in how much paint remains on the surface after the coat has dried, is the solids content of the paint.
Most polyurethanes have solids contents of 55-65%, since they have to conform to the rules on VOC (volatile organic compounds) emissions.
The typical butyrate dope has a solids content of less than 20% by volume. Further, as you thin it, the solids content decreases, so you may wind up spraying on a coat of "paint" of which 90% evaporates right after spraying.

I have great respect for you gentlemen who have made a living with bush planes for many years. Also, I do respect your prerogative to stay with whatever product you are happy with.
However, from this paint engineer's point of view, dope is stone age technology.

Bent

Re: Air Tech

Crash said:

Every plane I've seen covered with it that I've thumped with my finger felt like a loose drum, floppy. The fabric just flops back and forth in any large areas. The finish is smooth with no fabric weave showing which means "thick coating", and that means "heavy". When I thump my ceconite with dope, it sounds like a bongo drum, tight! When you run your finger nail across the weave it sounds like a zipper, i.e. thin coatings, which translates to light weight. Patching a polyurethane finish is a real pain compared to dope (I own both and patch both). Show quality yes! Practical on a real bush plane, no! This is just my opinion so take it as that. Crash

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ok Crash....

Did you cover the one that was not done in dope?? What process is your other plane? Airtech? Just curious if it was poor workmanship to not achieve that "bongo drum" cover job.
-Tim

I have friends with different Cubs that are painted in dope, aerothane, and polytone. All are nice. Each has an advantage, and a disadvantage relative to another. When I started my 12, I was focused on aerothane. I thought it was my best choice. I ended up hiring the cover job out. The guy doing it is as good as there is, and he prefers dope. The quality of his work was a significant plus, more so than dope being a negative. The bottom line is that all the paints work, and work well. My plane will likely need recovering before any of the coatings would fail.

What process was used to cover a plane is very low on my list of things I look at to determine how good that plane is. It's so low that I don't care. I ask, but I don't care.

So, if my 12's paint is "stone age technology", call me Fred Flintstone. I mean, geez, these are Piper airplanes we're talking about. Talk about stone age technology.

SB

Holy moly!! Look StewardB, I didn't mean to be disrespectful of your freedom to prefer any covering or paint you like.
My post was intended as a reply to the query "are two coats of polyurethane lighter than twelve coats of dope?".
Having spent a lot of years working in the paint business, I guess my personal preference slipped into the reply.
I realize that I need to refrain from commenting on religious matters in the future.

Bent

I wasn't offended at all, nor did I mean to offend you. I love new paint technology. I use it in my (wood products) business. But good ol' laquer still works pretty well, too. The volatile emission rules haven't affected us much up here yet. My point was that I'd rather have an excellent craftsman do my cover in dope than an average craftsman in urethane. I was going to cover it myself, and regardless of the level of care I would use, I'd still be pretty average when compared to a good pro.
SB

Steve Pierce wrote:

Sporty's sells a good product for the belly called Carbon X. Pour it in the water or spray some on the grimy stuff and it cuts it very well.

I would be careful with Carbon X. As with most "miracle" cleaners, there is a reason it works so well IT'S REALLY STRONG! You have to be SURE to wash off any residue from any aluminum or it will - over time - begin to corrode the aluminum.

Crash wrote:

Air Tech doesn't impress me at all. Every plane I've seen covered with it that I've thumped with my finger felt like a loose drum, floppy. The fabric just flops back and forth in any large areas. The finish is smooth with no fabric weave showing which means "thick coating", and that means "heavy". When I thump my ceconite with dope, it sounds like a bongo drum, tight!

Something that I have found with AirTech is that if someone has previous experience with dope on Ceconite you are used to primarily attaching the fabric to the structure in a "loose" state. (I think some reference the ability to lift the fabric an inch over the structure?) Ironing takes out all this bagginess, but the fabric isn't "drum tight"; the dope is what pulls it really tight.

Applying the fabric in this manner with AirTech would be a really bad idea. One would want to pull the fabric as snug as possible when initially attaching it. The only tightening will come from the iron as the "liquid" you will apply has no shrinking properties.

I don't know how tight is too tight (unless, of course, you reach the point of deforming things), but fabric that is loose or flops back and fourth in large area or balloons between the ribs in flight is definitely too loose.

Dope ("Ceconite"), Ployfiber, and AirTech are each methods of fabric covering, but each requires a different technique to apply. I had previous experience with dope, took a Sport Air workshop on Polyfiber, then covered my first "whole" airplane with AirTech. There were definitely some things I had to Unlearn to do the AirTech right. (In truth it was "too" easy).

As far as the issue of weight, I don't have a provable answer. It seems clear that less coats = lighter weight - but what if you sand off most of the solids of multiple coats of dope? I wonder if AirTech's claim of weight savings is based on the weight of the materials used or the weight of the finished product???

I can say that the process of applying AirTech is less labor intensive than either dope or Polyfiber due to the virtual elimination of sanding. You get a "show" finish right out of the spray gun whether you want it or not and the finish is virtually impervious to staining from outside sources.

While I freely admit that I don't land in "unimproved" areas as some of you do regularly, judging from the durability and flexibility of the AirTech covering jobs I have had my hands in I seriously wonder if they wouldn't stand up to the brush and stone damage conditions you guys deal with better than "bongo drum tight" dope??

As with most of the discussions on this site, the only way to answer it is financially unfeasible - put 3 properly covered dope, Polyfiber and AirTech Super Cubs to work side by side for a season and then judge the results. Well, when I win the lottery....

John Scott