HOW TO

P.O. Box 8090 Rancho Santa Fe, CA 92067 858.775.0505 www.ubercraft.com

SUBJECT: EPP Surface Preparation

EPP Surface Preparation Strategies

OK!..So youve built your favorite foamy plane and now you need to cover it. What to do! Well..First of all we will be talking about EPP here. Thats the acronym for Expanded Polypropylene. Its the material used in most foamy planes these days. The most popular covering materials for model airplanes these days, are the shrinking type such as Monokote, Ultracote, Solartex, etc, etc. They are all principally the same material; A thin shrinkable plastic film with adhesive backing. They all work by the same principal. Applying moderate heat to the material activates the adhesive on the back and shrinks the covering in one simple step. The plastic film is glued to the suitable surface and it shrink-wraps the object of covering. The shrinking action can remove wrinkles and makes the film go around compound curves nicely. What could be easier! But wait!..Theres the seemingly small matter of suitable surface we need to address first if we are to succeed. Most of the covering films we are talking about are specifically designed to be applied directly to wood surfaces; Balsawood to be more precise. Balsawood is not too hard and not too soft. Balsawood is not too porous and not too impermeable. Balsawood tolerates moderate heat and cools quickly. The same cannot be said about EPP! EPP is too soft (its foam afterall). EPP is too porous (too many air bubbles!). EPP does not tolerate moderate heat (it melts or at best it deforms!) What this means to you is that if you were to apply the covering to the EPP right away, you would face at least four problems: Firstly, since most of the EPP foam consists of air bubbles, you will be asking the adhesive backing to attach the film to air! There is just not enough material for the covering to grab on to. The covering doesnt want to stick. So to make it stick you will instinctively apply more heat and pressure!

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As you apply more heat you will face the second problem: You are getting perilously close to melting the EPP. Thirdly, as you apply heat, you are causing the air inside those tiny bubbles to expand. The expanded air needs to escape, but the plastic covering is in the way. So you end up with big air bubbles under the covering. Fourthly, the heat you have applied will cause premature shrinking of the covering which badly deforms the EPP. The end result is a twisted, partially melted, badly wrinkled surface. So what are we to do? Simple! We need to employ the dual strategies of:..Surface Preparation and Clever Application.

Surface Preparation: Look closely at the surface of the EPP youre about to cover. Really close! Grab a magnifying glass if you dont want to go cross-eyed! What you see are a whole lot of air bubbles that are cut open with some PP (thats the plastic!) in between. You need to fill these holes. The more of these tiny holes you fill, the more surface area you create for the covering to adhere to and the less air bubbles you have trapped under the covering. How do you fill the tiny holes? That is the $64,000.00 question! There are as many methods as there are experts to voice their opinion. They range from lightweight spackle (the stuff you put on drywall to smooth out the surface) to fiberglass resin! Lets stop a minute and examine our options. First lets decide what we are aiming to achieve. Do we want the finished surface to be soft, and bouncy (like foam!) or do we want it to be hard? If you want it to be hard, then your best bet it to use fiberglass or thin wood sheathing (balsa or plywood). If you use fiberglass, your work is complete. If you use plywood or balsa sheathing, you can then cover the finished wing with the plastic heat shrink film and your worries are over. For most of us though, this defeat the purpose. The reason we use EPP is to keep the model light, bouncy and relatively durable. So. For a light and bouncy model that would last longer, your best bet is a filler material that does not take away the bounce of the EPP. The most inexpensive easy and lightweight material is lightweight spackle. It is inexpensive as you can find it in most hardware stores. It easy to apply; youll smear it on with a putty knife (and sometimes your fingers!) It is light because you will sand most of it off after it dries. It is perfect? NO! Even though spackle fills most of the large air bubbles in EPP, it cannot penetrate into the really tiny ones. It also doesnt stick to well to the EPP. As a result, after heavy use and some bouncing around it loses its grip on the EPP and wrinkles and creases do develop. But in the meantime the surface will be relatively smooth and the model comparatively light.
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The next option is some type of sticky material that will both fill the bubbles and stay soft and bouncy. This would be some type of glue, but most glues dry too hard. Polyurethane glue (Gorilla Glue, Ultimate Glue, etc.) if mixed with water, will foam and dry to a semi soft consistency with a hard crust. If one was willing to sand off the crust and the boil over one will end up with a surface that will (with some work) be smooth, bouncy and easily accepting of the covering film. If some added weight wasnt a problem, you could use a sticky material that would not need hardening. Something like strapping tape. Its sticky (on one side) and will adhere to the EPP better than the covering would. It would not penetrate the EPP pores, but it will cover them. You could then apply the plastic covering over the smooth surface the strapping tape provides. To get this smooth surface, you need to apply the strapping tape with forethought and accuracy. This means planning how you are going to arrange the narrow strips of tape (usually 2 wide) to cover a large area. It also means butting the joints instead of lapping them to ensure a smooth surface. Applying a second layer with band running at an angle to the first layer produces an even stiffer surface but comes with the weight penalty. Clever Application: So now you are done with the surface preparation of your choice and you are ready to cover. Whats next? Well, in most cases you need to do things backwards! First you dont want to use the adhesive on the back of the film for adhesion. To activate that substance you need heat and heat is not a friend of the EPP! Second, you dont want to start shrinking the covering right away. The heat is going to start the shrinkage and at the start of the process neither you nor the EPP are ready for shrinkage! So. Youll first glue the covering down with some type of lightweight glue and after youre ready (meaning all surfaces are covered) you apply the heat to shrink the covering and activate the adhesive backing for some added adhesion. The adhesive of choice for this process is the 3M77 spray. You spray it lightly over the prepared surface and let it dry for a minute or so. You want the solvents to evaporate, but you dont want the adhesive to dry. You should have the covering cut to size beforehand (about 2 oversize all around). Just lay the covering on top and using a the straight edge of a credit card burnish the covering. You need to apply heat to the compound curves (like the wingtips) to get the covering to lay out. But in this process you apply the heat to the covering before you lay it over the EPP. Once you have both sides of the wing covered and the joint overlapped, you use your iron on moderate heat to seal the joints. You now have the surfaces covered and all that remains is to shrink the covering to get a taught and wrinkle free surface. This is best done with the wings resting in the beds and you holding them down to prevent warping. What follows is the step-by-step instructions for each of the processes. Pick your favorite and have a go at it. If you dont like what you end up with, try another method next time.

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Surface Preparation Options: A. Spackled: 1. Sand and shape the wing to the final desired shape, removing as much of the fuzz from the surface as possible. Dont leave any loose particles on the surface. 2. Use lightweight spackle straight out of the can (or tub) but make sure its not dry. Dry spackle will not penetrate the foam pores as well. Mix some water into the spackle to get a creamy consistency, or better yet pat the wing with some water. As you apply the spackle, it will mix with the water and sink into the pores. 3. Rub the spackle into the surface with a putty knife or your fingers and remove as much of the excess as possible, leaving only a thin film on top. Allow the spackle to dry thoroughly. 4. After the spackle is dry, sand it down with 320 grit sandpaper removing the top crusted layer. Stop sanding when you start raising the foam fuzz. 5. Remove the spackle dust with a lightly damp cloth. Dont use paper towel as it will leave paper residue. 6. Once the surface is completely dry, spray a very light layer of 3M77 adhesive to seal the spackle in. B. Polyurethane Glued: 1. Sand and shape the wing to the final desired shape, removing as much of the fuzz from the surface as possible. Dont leave any loose particles on the surface. 2. Using a wet cloth, rub the wing down to make it wet. Make sure you dont wet the wooden part as they will swell and warp. 3. Using the finger on your gloved hand, spread polyurethane glue over the wing. Start from one corner and press the glue into the foam with small circular motion of your finger. This will take some time but make sure you dont leave any glue on the surface. Whatever you rubbed into the pores will begin to foam shortly and thats all you need. 4. Once one surface of the wing is complete. Leave it to dry/foam. 5. After the glue has dried, depending on how much you applied and how well it foamed, you have some sanding to do. Remove by sanding, all of the glue above the surface. Stop sanding when you start seeing the white color of the EPP. 6. Examine the surface of the wing. If it is still too porous (you see a lot of tiny holes) you need to repeat the process of applying the polyurethane glue. With each application the pores will get more clogged and more solid surface area is created for the covering to adhere to. Obviously, every time you apply the glue, the more weight is added to the plane (even though you are sanding most of it off) and you are doing a lot of sanding which will be tiring! The final result, however, is worth the extra work. Especially when lightly flooded with CA glue which cures the final glue layer into a surface that can be sanded smoothly almost to a sheen!
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Strapping Tape: 1. Sand and shape the wing to the final desired shape, removing as much of the fuzz from the surface as possible. Dont leave any loose particles on the surface. 2. Spray all the wing surfaces with a thin layer of 3M77 adhesive. 3. Allow the 3M77 to dry for about an hour. 4. Put down layers of strapping tape butting the joints from one end of the wing to the other. For a single layer application lay the tape chord-wise (in the direction the plane will fly). For a double layer application, lay the tape at 45 degrees to the chord and reverse the direction for the top layer (on the bias) 5. Start from the center of the bottom of the wing and work your way to the tips. At the leading edge, wrap each strip of tape to the other side( top). At the trailing edge wrap each strip to the flat portion. Butt the next strip against the previous one ensuring that there is neither an overlap nor a gap between the two. 6. Once finished with the bottom, repeat step 5 for the top surface. Wrap each end of each strip to the other side and overlap the opposite side by . 7. After the first layer is complete, use acetone to remove the release agent from the shinny side of the tape you just put down. This allows better adhesion between the two layers. After the second layer is complete, use acetone to remove the release agent from the shinny side of the tape you just put down. This allows better adhesion between the top layer and the covering.

Refer to Covering Your EPP Foam Wing With Heat Shrink Covering for what to do next.

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