The approach I used for the ailerons was better than the previous attempt, but I was still having trouble with foil lifting at the very edges in some areas. Regardless of how well it was glued down, the smaller areas at the edge simply didn't have enough glued surface area to stay in place under even a small amount of handling.
I had not done the tail plane wingtips yet, but did not have much hope that they would would be better or hold up better. While thinking this over, it occurred to me that perhaps the tail planes were also painted yellow like the vertical stabilizer was going to be. I had not studied the aftermarket decals sufficiently to know for sure. So I went looking and indeed, the entire tail section is painted yellow.
So I proceeded to peel the foil off of most of the tail section with the intent of simply painting it yellow. As for the main wing ailerons and wingtips, I've decided to paint them with Alclad . Most of the wing will still be foiled and is holding up well, but the wing tips and ailerons were not, so that foil was also taken off.
The entire rest of the aircraft except for the cowling, and gear doors has now been foiled. So I turned my attention to what needs to come next. I have heard that these foiled finishes should be sanded unless one wants to have the shiny aluminum foil look. I am tempted by that, but there are numerous rub marks from burnishing the foil down.
I first tried polishing one of my foiled test mules to see how this might look. It does clean up the foil but is very shiny , like an airshow bird. I am not after that look.
So I tried some more experiments with various sanding grits and clear coats to see how it might look. This of course was also done on the test mules.
5000 and 7000 grit seems to be more like a polishing and doesn't leave the foil looking like weathered aluminum. 3000 grit does leave the foil looking like weathered aluminum. I sanded one area with this 3000 sanding sponge (wet), then painted three different areas with matte, semi matte, and gloss Tamiya clear paints. I used a brush to do this, so there are some evidence of paint brush marks in the test finish.
Here is the test mule. The photo looks somewhat different than the real test piece, but you can see that the matte clear coat gives a very flat weathered aluminum finish. The semi-matte looks less weathered and this may be were I go . The gloss, reduces the scratchiness of the sanding, and may be useful for panel differences when used in conjunction with semi matte (or even full matte).
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1. Matte
2. Semi Matte
3. Gloss
4. Unsanded aluminum foil
I also tried these three clear coats on unsanded aluminum foil and the matte looks about the same, semi matte, slightly glossier, and the glossy looks shinier.
I am thinking about trying some very thinned down oil filters using various different colors to see how they look on sanded and unsanded surfaces.
