Experimenting with foam

This quite an old trick....in the 70s when foam wings started to become popular for larger R/C models....which back then meant .40-.60 sized airframes, one of the 'economy finish' trick-as opposed to sheeting with balsa or obeche veneer, was to cover the foam wing with good quality brown paper attached with PVA glue. This gave a good surface that then withstood minor dings and provided a good surface for painting. 'butchers' paper' was often recommended-but I imagine any kind of reasonably solid brown wrapping paper would have proved adequate.

[With the way NZ is going phasing out plastics-particular single use supermarket bags....brown paper bags have made a reappearance in our supermarkets-I imagine it will not be too long before brown paper generally makes a wider reappearance in packaging....!]

ChrisM
'ffkiwi'

PS For akjgarnner in particular-it strikes me that PVA is a thermoplastic, and these days forms the basis of such covering aid products such as 'balsaloc' and 'covergrip'....but others in the past found-in the age of plastic coverings-that normal PVA could be heated with a covering iron to re-attach covering where it had lifted. I'm not aware of people ironing brown paper on to a PVA'd surface-but there would seem to be no reason why it wouldn't work once the glue layer was dry.....this might open up another variation on your current method-and perhaps a better surface for painting, hmm?