Any Monokote users here?

[Truckracer]

I've been building models for decades and for a very long time, Monokote was my iron on covering of choice. Several years ago, Monokote seemed to change their formula and I started to have problems I had never had or heard of before. These were mostly shrink and adhesion problems. As a result, most planes over the last decade or so have been covered with Ultracote that certainly works OK but it also has some issues. I'm working to finish a project I started years ago and I'd prefer to use Monokote on it for appearance and color match reasons so I have a couple of questions.

First, has Monokote resolved the issues they seemed to create for themselves? Has Monokote returned to the covering it once was? Anything else anyone can tell my about the current product would be helpful. Certainly I can just keep using Ultracote and the results will be OK but its just not the same as I could once achieve with Monokote.

 

[dhal22]

I'm no help, I glass and paint my planes.

 

[ericb]

Last Monokote I bought was last year and it was the "new" formula. Used to love it, now not so much.

 

[Truckracer]

I'm no help, I glass and paint my planes.

I do that too in many cases but this is an old ragwing airplane. Just not feeling like using fabric on this one. Of course there are lots of painted parts.

 

[Truckracer]

Last Monokote I bought was last year and it was the "new" formula. Used to love it, now not so much.

What kinds of problems did you experience?

 

[ericb]

Same as you. Adhesion was not like it used to be and shrinking was a pain.

 

[Flyingjon]

I was just reading earlier today on a thread on rcu that due to EPA they had to change their formula and since then it hasn't worked as nice.

 

[Flyingjon]

Here's the link by the way.
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/kit-building-121/10381270-ultracote-color-chart.html

 

[-Rick-]

I had some 20 year old rolls of white, but didn't have enough for the plane I was working on at the time. Got some new rolls to finish the plane, the color still matched and I found it still worked the same but it doesn't stick as well. The plane I'm working on now just sitting on the bench I notice new spots coming lose all the time.

 

[Truckracer]

Thanks all for the link and information. Dang, I was hoping for better news. Recently, I repaired a friend's plane using some old Monokote I had in storage. Of course it worked perfect but the covering on the plane which was newer was very hard to work around. Very sad situation.