COLOREX! Tissue dope

earthsciteach

Moderator
Moderator
While you are waiting on the slow boat from PA to arrive, I did a bit of poking around on the web regarding tissue dope. Guillows (makers of those awesome, old-school stick and tissue kits) recommends mixing 50% white glue (Elmer's) and 50% water for tissue dope. Have you tried that?
 

colorex

Rotor Riot!
Mentor
While you are waiting on the slow boat from PA to arrive, I did a bit of poking around on the web regarding tissue dope. Guillows (makers of those awesome, old-school stick and tissue kits) recommends mixing 50% white glue (Elmer's) and 50% water for tissue dope. Have you tried that?

UMMM, I used something similar to stick the paper to the frame, but haven't tried to use it as dope - I'll give it a try.
 

colorex

Rotor Riot!
Mentor
I just thought of something, if I do the covering with glue, then the tissue will get sticky because of the high humidity here.

But I just remembered that there is something used to seal wood - "sellador" "wood sealant formulated with nitrocellulose resin. Bingo, nitrocellulose is what makes up dope. It's kinda brown-looking, and usually needs to be thinned out a lot. When it's dry it's very sandable, and it can be reapplied in several coats.

But, as far as being smelly, to me it just smells like thinner. Dope is reported to have a very unpleasant smell.
I don't know if it will tighten the paper like dope should. I'll see if I can get my hands on some "sellador" and try that out.
 

pgerts

Old age member
Mentor
Lots of people love the smell of dope - thinner!
The smell is intensive as the solvent disappears fast.


Some old people used washed camera film and acetone.
Used as dope when really thin and as glue when thicker.
(you can also use almost any foam with acetone)
Nail polish remover is acetone with oil - you don't normally want oil in the dope.

I have never heard of white glue and water as dope.
It is used when covering foam wings (combat) with paper - gets really hard but has to be painted to resist weather and fuel.
 
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colorex

Rotor Riot!
Mentor
I wonder if WBPU (water based poly urethane) would be effective?

You should see the paint store owner's face when I asked them about WBPU... They don't think it's possible for WBPU to exist. They only have the oil/thinner one.
 

Dagger_117

RC Flyer
Just found this thread...I use coffee filters and 60-40 white glue water mixture...the coffee filters are fibrous making them very strong and they don't shrink as bad as other materials...then a coating of WBPU for real strength and a hard shell...these materials add minimal weight to planes, but make them very strong.
 

MrClean

Well-known member
I would not say the odor of dope is unpleasent, but it is definitely not good for the brain cells! :p


Actually,,, that explains a lot. We used to have an old bottle of Aerogloss in the hobby shop. Pre- reformulation Aerogloss. Every once in a while we'd crack the jar open, take a whiff and be magically transported to the days of yesteryear where my biggest worry was if the dope was going to dry in time for flying and wondering if dad would let me stick the wing out the window on the way to the flying field. Ahhhhhhh

It's good stuff. Brodaks sells dope in America but it probably doesn't ship to points south very well. If you have an airfield anywhere and your version of the EAA (ultralight airplane comunity) check with them on dope. Brodaks is repackaged and died Randolphs. We rarely need a whole gallon of the stuff. The tissue isn't just tissue, though it can be, it's a different sort called silkspan BUT you could just go old school and use Silk. A little heavier but mucho nicer looking.
 

MrClean

Well-known member
OH, and just because I thought it was funny. I'm redoing my stairs and man has that been a project. Finally after hours of matching stain and sanding and all that other stuff, I opened a can of the Polyurethane. There it is, tranlucent milk, what the??? A hell I've been using this stuff to stick ripstop and panty hose and plenty of other coverings to surfaces for years? I threw the last gallon I had of the stuff out when I cleaned the garage out a year ago. I think we pionered the use of it in the combat forums round the turn of the century. Man we were trend setters.

I laughed and told my wife I was FINALLY using this stuff for it's intended purposes!
 

Tritium

Amateur Extra Class K5TWM
Minwax Polycrylic works great for "dope" without making you dopey (water soluble too) I use a synthetic fabric found at the Home Depot originally intended for roof seam reinforcement before using an elastometric roof coating. The type I have looks like a seamstress's basting tape (random fiber directions) and not like the "screen wire looking" cloth for the same purpose.

Thurmond