Someone asked me this question... can one use a regular iron (used for ironing clothes at home) to cover balsa frames (or fix bubbles in existing covering) ?

We have (well, my brother has) a covering iron, so this never came up.  Comments ? Do we need to put some piece of cloth, if we use a normal iron ?

How about other alternatives like hair dryers ?

Dear Anwar
I tried my old iron in the early stages. You can keep the setting used for nylon material or less depending on the quality and thickness of the filim you use. I never used cloth inbetween any way. I still use hair dryer and oven glove to strech the filim if it becomes saggy..

Oven glove ? Just to help hold items in front of the hair dryer ?

hahahahhaha Yes Anwer

Any Iron box and Hair Dryer can be used with some care. Even though I use a covering Iron I always use a cloth cover over the iron's working surface to prevent the covering film and the iron's face too.

tried it on my catalina today with the ordinary iron box, it worked great for me

hahahaha ….I told you it works....... only increase the heat step by step to achieve the correct temp. You may find it bit difficult to reach some congested places. But if you have travel iron they are the best.

Agree totally. I have been using one, very happily -  for more than 20 years.

For hard to reach areas with a normal or even a travel iron, the trick is to use a suitable metal piece.
For e.g. if you need to reach a flat area, place a steel ruler on the iron shoe to suitably heat the ruler and apply the heat to heat shrinkable film area. You can use a spoon for the concave or convex area.
You can experiment a bit starting from low heat settings and then increase till you get the hang of it.

As suggested by Rao, it is a good idea to cover the iron shoe with a soft cotton cloth to avoid any heat/scratch mark on the film. I just use an old cotton vest, it works fine and is much cheaper than proprietary iron covers

When necessary, I use a pocket handkerchief. It is always handy!