Dyeing Silkspan

When I use RIT on silkspan, do I just dye it like fabric in hot water then hang it to dry?? Does it shrink again like normal after it drys?

Thanks

You can let it dry and wet it again for covering purposes. It will stretch when wet and shrink when dry like "normal". But why not go direct from the RIT dye to the wing. Cover the plane while the stuff is wet from the dye. Saves time, saves energy, saves...well, water?

Curt,
After you are happy with the color saturation on the silkspan, you need (I think) to rinse it in water to remove the salts. My recommendation is to just leave the pieces in the water until ready to use. I made the mistake of hanging them all up, but when I began to cover the top half of the wing, those pieces had begun to dry. This caused the top to be less taught than the bottom, and eventually led to warping problems. I dyed all pieces together so that the color would be the same intensity.

Other techniques might be to spritz the silkspan pieces with water, just before covering.

I mention this only because beginners sometimes miss the obvious. Next time I'll be better.

I guess this is the way to go then. I suppose the silkspan takes up the color pretty quickly.

Thanks Guys, I'll be doing this one in the next couple of days.

Keep a spray bottle handy and keep the silkspan on both sides of the wing wet until you get it all covered. Then dry the wing with the nose of the airplane pointed down (or up), otherwise the top silkspan will dry before the bottom and may cause a warp. If you get a warp at this stage you can rewet and hold things straight until dry.

It's been about 30 years since I dyed the silkspan for my Excalibur (which is still around and being restored). It seems to me that I rinsed it, let it dry, and then covered as normal (wet). Darker colors look best, red and blue, maybe black. If you
dissolve some Rit in thinner, strain it and use the thinner in the first few coats of clear, it will look EXCELLENT, almost like a candyapple. I think black would be outstanding over a silver base coat (skip the dyed silkspan). You'd need to spray it. In all cases, you need to give a good clear coat to prevent the dye from leaching out when fuel gets on it. Steve

Any substrate made from stuff God made (organic stuff like silk, silkspan, and newspaper) shrinks and grows with changes in moisture content. Organic fibers are long and skinny. When they take on moisture, they get fatter, but not much longer. When they lose moisture, they get skinnier, but not much shorter. Every time they gain or lose moisture, they change size a little less than the last time they had the same moisture change. That phenomenon is called hysterisis.
You can prove all this to yourself rather easily. Cut an 8" by 8" square out of your newspaper. Soak it in water for a few seconds, then measure the square again while it is soaking wet. It will be close to 8 1/4" wide, and not much longer than the original 8". That is because the fibers are aligned more from the top to bottom than side to side. When the fibers get fatter with more moisture, the paper will grow more in the direction opposite to the direction of the fibers. As the paper dries, it will come back close to the original size, but with a little more shrinkage side to side. Repeat the experiment with the same paper, and you will see less change the second time. Repeat the experiment a third time, and you will see even less change. That is hysterisis.
The ratio of growth / shrinkage top to bottom versus growth / shrinkage side to side is grain. That is, the greater the difference between the two, the greater number of fibers aligned top to bottom. Newspaper is pretty grainy, and silkspan is much less.
Back to your original question. The silkspan will not shrink as much after you RIT it than it would have if you applied it raw. You might see less shrinkage in one direction than the other.
This is probably a little more than you wanted to know, but it gives you a way to design your own experiment to fully answer your question. I would be interested in your final answer if you choose to do the experiment.

L F