A proper float finish has to be waterproof and free from holes or cracks. \u00a0As long as that requirement is satisfied, you can use any finish you want. \u00a0Just don’t get carried away adding tons of weight.<\/p>\n
Chuck Cunningham’s preferred finish was nothing. \u00a0His floats were just plain foam, or if extra strength was needed, foam with fiber reinforced packing tape. I’m guessing Chuck’s floats were usually ugly, and maybe you don’t want ugly floats. \u00a0But then again, if you want pretty floats maybe you should be using a different design because Chuck’s basic outline isn’t all that pretty in the first place. \u00a0But that’s the great thing about RC. \u00a0You can build things however you want. \u00a0I did a really nice set of Cunningham floats a long time ago with yellow tissue paper and Aerogloss dope, which is an acrylic finish. \u00a0The finish looked great, so give that a try if you ever get your hands on an old jar\u00a0of Aerogloss. \u00a0(I got four jars\u00a0from an estate sale last month.)<\/p>\n
This time I decided to follow a procedure I used to finish the speaker cabinet of my harmonica amplifier.<\/p>\n
This speaker cabinet is covered with cotton fabric stuck on with Minwax Polycrylic. \u00a0I wanted to use similarly crazy fabric on my floats, but I couldn’t \u00a0find anything light enough in my wife’s quilt shop for a model plane. \u00a0Actually, I probably could have if I wanted to dig all afternoon, but I got tired of it and decided to use brown paper instead.<\/p>\n The two companies I order balsa from stuff the empty space in their shipping boxes with brown paper. \u00a0One company uses heavier paper, and the other uses lighter paper, so I used the lighter of the two, which is quite nice for the application. \u00a0Boxes from Sig are stuffed with really nice lightweight white paper. \u00a0I also considered newspaper, which is the perfect weight. \u00a0It would have looked great, but I couldn’t decide which page I liked best. \u00a0Should I go with the advertising pages, or the church news, or the police mugshots? \u00a0That was a decision I was having too hard of a time with, so I went with brown paper instead.<\/p>\n Minwax Polycrylic\u00a0is a water based wood finish, which is very easy to handle and clean up. \u00a0A quick internet\u00a0search revealed that it is water resistant, but for outdoor applications you should use oil based polyurethane or spar urethane. \u00a0I’m able to set cold drinks on my amplifier with no problem, so I can attest to the water resistance, but maybe a float in a pond is a different story. \u00a0I want these floats finished with polyurethane just to be sure there won’t be any trouble. \u00a0 Testing\u00a0with scraps of wood\u00a0and\u00a0oil based polyurethane revealed that oil based polyurethane does a poor\u00a0job of sticking the paper on. \u00a0Water based polycrylic permeates the paper and sticks it on nice and tight, so the plan is to stick all of the paper on\u00a0with polyrcylic, then sand the shine off of it and finish with a coat or two of oil based polyurethane. \u00a0That’s the best of both worlds.<\/p>\n To start, I cut a strip of paper the right width and set it aside. \u00a0Then I brushed a heavy coat of polycrylic onto the bottom of the float. \u00a0The paper was submerged in water, then it was applied over the\u00a0coat of goo. \u00a0Bubbles were squeezed out, then a coat of polycrylic was brushed over the paper. \u00a0Care must be taken to get the paper crammed all the way into the inside corner at the step without tearing it.<\/p>\n I\u00a0didn’t want the first piece of paper to overlap the corners, so I cut it to cover only one surface. \u00a0I would have liked it to be closer to the edge, but I didn’t feel like cutting another strip, so I just went with it. \u00a0My other three floats look better than this.<\/p>\n After doing all four float bottoms I set them aside to dry for about 4 hours. \u00a0Then I applied paper to one side of each float. \u00a0Once again, a thick coat is brushed on, the wet paper is laid in place, bubbles are pressed out, and a coat is applied onto the paper. \u00a0This time the paper needs to be trimmed at the corners, sort of like applying Monokote. \u00a0The overlap zone is coated, then the edge is brushed down with more Polycrylic.<\/p>\n You have to make sure all the bubbles are gone, because you get one chance with this stuff. \u00a0It’s pretty easy. \u00a0You just have to take care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Now that the floats are built, the next step is to apply some kind of waterproof finish. \u00a0The ones I made a long time ago were finished with Monokote, which worked well. \u00a0The trick is to paint all of the … Continue reading ![\"DSC_0671\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/DSC_0671.jpg\")
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