Uhm - to avoid getting high on the dope fumes if you know you don't have adequate ventilation in your workshop?

Just to clarify - in my experience, dope based sanding sealer is the best sealer hands down for sealing and sanding - but the fumes can be a horrorshow. Waterbased sealers are usually either harder to apply or to sand, but there are no fumes to mess with the old sinuses. Plusses and minuses either way.

Fumes ??
Fumes ??
What Fumes ?
All I have ever smelled from dope-based Sanding Sealer/Balsa Fillercoat is an olde-tyme hobby-shop AROMA that is infinitely pleasant.
Actually I now live in a condo and STILL use the stuff...In winter I close the shop room door and open a window a hair with a fan sucking the AROMA to the outside.

__________________
When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, TURMOIL, FIASCOS, and HAVOC !

Uh, maybe we like to keep our brain cells intact? I've tried Aero Gloss I wasn't really that impressed. Plus its a b*tch to clean up.

__________________
"Men and steel are alike. When they lose their temper they lose their worth." - Chuck Norris

ANY topcoat/sealer/finish that can be cleaned/thinned/removed with MEK, MIBK, Acetone, Toluene or Ethyl Acetate IS easy clean-up.
If it is NOT Organic (solvent) based, it's NOT going on my rocket.
No SOLVENT=NO finish !
Anyone NOT impressed by Aero Gloss either is:
1) NOT using it properly
or
2) Using some sort of "Unobtainium" uber-finish
Those are the ONLY two choices regarding Aero Gloss...if you are not in category 2) above, see #1.


Opinions of tree-hugging whackos will be duly noted, and CORRECTLY IGNORED.

__________________
When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, TURMOIL, FIASCOS, and HAVOC !

And I use wood glue, too! No epoxy for me!

__________________
"Men and steel are alike. When they lose their temper they lose their worth." - Chuck Norris

Quite right...

I have no "beef" with folks wanting to use the organic solvent dope-type materials... more power to them, and if it works well for them and they don't object to the smell and cleanup and all that, good for them... more than one way to skin a cat...

BUT, neither is CWF and other 'water thinned' products inferior-- they produce identical results by a different means. For some people they're actually superior; for others, the dope products seem to be superior...

Guess it's a matter of experience. I for one don't care to spend as much as is required for all the solvent-based dope-type fillers and materials... which can add up very quickly! Plus, there's no need to keep around a veritable chemistry lab's-worth of solvents to clean up and thin the materials with, either, and the application equipment (which has a short working life due to the cleanup difficulties). I've use the same 99 cent 1 inch brush for the past four years doing thinned CWF... and the same tub of CWF, scooping out a spoonful periodically into an old baby-food jar and thinning with tap water to the consistency of bottle mustard... cleanup is a breeze with regular tap water and a damp cloth/paper towel if I happened to have dripped any anywhere...
Yes it makes sanding dust, but that's what vacuum cleaners are for...

There are pluses and minuses to both approaches... whichever works better for ya, go for it!

Later! OL JR

__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

Quite true...

I've had a good Titebond II double glue joint, with the "squeeze out" wood glue spread as a light fillet, then the REAL fillet being done with Titebond Moulding and Trim Glue, have a bond strength great enough that during a power prang, when the rocket hit the ground fin-first (flat) the fin stuck in the ground and sheared off the rocket, taking the outer couple layers of paper tube with it... the glue DID NOT FAIL-- the underlying material failed...

When your joint strength exceeds that of the underlying materials, it is POINTLESS to go stronger...

Epoxy is good for SOME things, but it's greatly overrated compared to wood glue IMHO and experience...

Later! OL JR

__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

Hearing all the different opinions on this subject was very helpful for me. Thanks guys.

Hey Now !!!
I use wood glue too for construction; but only to attach fins on rockets that will not sustain an average thrust level above that of a D21/D24.
I never use wood glue for fillets any longer though. 30-min epoxy makes PERFECT single-application fillets.
For anything that the "normal" engine choice will be of the E18 impulse level or above, I use epoxy to both attach and fillet fins.
Does epoxy weigh more than wood glue ? Yeah, but the amount is miniscule on a typical MPR.
To each their own I guess....for MPR it's kinda like asking which is better-Coca-Cola or Pepsi- largely personal preference.
For sealing fins, the lower dust of dope-based sealers/fillers far outweighs the sanding mess of water-based CWF and others in that same group.

__________________
When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, TURMOIL, FIASCOS, and HAVOC !

Gotta agree with the dust factor between dope sealer and CWF. But the Delta Ceramcoat Sealer does not generate a lot of dust - as I said earlier, it just clogs up the sandpaper really fast. Believe me, I've used quite a lot of Aerogloss in my time - used to build a lot of stick and paper model planes and using dope is pretty much a given there. If you remember the old Sig Sinbad, you'll know there was a LOT of surface area to dope on that sucker! I think I put four or five coats on it (I was painting it white, and white dope never did cover well with less than three coats!) But I get sinus headaches a lot easier these days than I did back then (we are talking 30-40 years here), so I choose carefully when I use dope.

Actually, although you gotta have a lot of ventilation to do this too, I also like coating balsa with CA - talk about a really tough and smooth finish, and it usually only takes one coat to do the job. The finished product is about as smooth and tough as plastic. Again, you gotta be REAL careful about the fumes with CA too - even more than with dope.