Question: What would you recommend in the way of tools for working with Covering materials?

Answer: Here's a list of what we would suggest:

• A pair of sharp scissors
• An Xacto Knife with a SHARP #11 Blade
• A Heat Iron with controllable temperature (on VCOTE or VCOTE2-3DS use only for applying patches)
• A Heat Iron Sock (on VCOTE or VCOTE2-3DS use only for applying patches)
• A Heat Gun with controllable consistent output temperature
• A soft cotton cloth or glove.

Please note that the heat gun is particularly important. Unfortunately the standard RC covering heat gun has been driven down in price so that it is selling at times for usa$14.95-19.95. We say unfortunately because at that price we are getting exactly what we are paying for... a pretty crude unregulated heat producer. Even a decent hair dryer costs more!

Most of these low end RC covering heat guns do not monitor the heat coming out of the nozzle. They have a heating element that heats the air sucked into the back of the gun and a fan that blasts it out the front. The vanes at the back of the gun have a very limited effect on the output temperature. So... if you take a 1000 watt gun for example, and heat air that is at 50F flowing into the back of gun you get a fixed amount of temperature increase... lets say 350F and the outflowing air is at 50+350=400F. Now run the same gun with ambient air of 75F flowing into the back of the gun and the same 1000W of energy will increase this 75F air by 350 degrees to 425F. So depending on the ambient air temperature you get a different output temperature. To add to the confusion somewhat, adding a fixed amount of energy to dry air (low humidity) will change the temperature of the air more than if you add if you add the same amount of energy to moist (high humidity) air. This variation in output temperature due to changes in the ambient air and ambient humidity makes it very difficult to work out a reliable consistent technique when you are working with heat shrink covering. One day you get a "feel" for the right amount of heat, time and distance and everything goes great. The next day or a month later you try this with a different ambient air temperature and/or different humidity and your technique does not work... why? Because the temperature of the air flowing out of the gun has changed without you being aware of it.

What can you do about this to make your covering technique more consistent? Well sadly to say you either have to live with this problem or you have to dump the cheapy RC covering heat gun and get a heat gun that measures and controls the consistency of the temperature of the air flowing out of the gun.

There are a number of heat guns for shrinking heat shrink tubing that work well. They can be rather expensive but give you good control over the temperature you want AND hold that temperature consistently regardless of ambient temperature and humidity. It's nice to be able to select the temperature if you've got the cash to buy such a gun. If you need to watch your pennies a bit more carefully, we suggest opting for less control and go for consistency. Some of the lower priced heat guns intended for stripping paint do this. You will need to work out the distance and time technique that works for your covering but at least you will be doing so with a gun that is producing a reliable temperature output. We have used the Black & Decker #9756 with good results. This has two temperature settings, 500F and 1000F. Read the safety instructions that comes with the unit. Work with the 500F setting at a good distance at first (say 15") and move the gun frequently until you get a feel for it. Generally the closer you get and/or the hotter the air coming out of the gun, the quicker you have to move the gun (less exposure time) to avoid overheating the covering.