Tapes - pinked or plain?

[amerkarim]

Many thanks Eddie

That will help guide me a lot as to quantities

Good luck with your build, look forward to seeing the pics soon

Kindest regards

Amer

[TahoeTim]

One warning: I am using red and white. I had planned to buy 4 inch tapes and cut down for the 2 inch and one inch tape locations. It does NOT work for any colored covering. The edge is white. I also used waste material to try to make tapes. It works fine if you glue a wide sheet and then cut the tapes from that. Gluing a 2 inch wide tape does not work well. I used it on the belly of the plane (so don't look under my plane if you see me). The factory tape that is pre-glued works better anyway and is much quicker to apply.

White works fine from home made tapes but as I said the pre glued tapes are better. Spend the few extra bucks.

I would also say to only order one bottle of glue at a time. I got caught with an early winter so my glue has now expired.

[bumsteer]

With the $100+ paper weight I look at occasionally, I second being careful on how much glue you order.

Rick

[jrevens]

With the $100+ paper weight I look at occasionally, I second being careful on how much glue you order.

Rick

Hi Rick,

If you haven't, you should talk to Lars. If it hasn't been mixed with the hardener/catalyst yet, and if the glue wasn't stored in a real warm place or with wildly changing temperatures, I believe I was told that the glue would be fine for quite a bit longer than the "use before date". If you had any doubts, you could mix it up & do some test strips, let them cure for a week, And do some peel & shear tests. I'm not saying it's the case here, but sometimes dates like that are very conservative because the manufacturer has no control over storage conditions. Don't quote me, but I think Lars might have said that they have used the glue something like 6 mos. to a year after the date with good results. Talk to Lars. If he says it's OK, test it. "Trust but verify".

[efwd]

Two points to add. First, I spoke to Lars on Monday as I was trying to order new glue. The glue now is apparently premixed by the way. My glue came in three bottles and I don't have to mix anything. Lars advised that the expiration date is given as a worse case scenario on storage. I have stored them in the fridge and mine seems to be working well.
Second, I attempted to cut a four inch wide tape for the leading edge of my rudder. No matter how careful I was the edge is not straight. Not horrible but even the least attentive person would notice the edge being slightly off compared to the precut tape. I am ordering tapes of appropriate width for everything. Not inexpensive but worth it.
Just a pic of the horizontal I am working on.
Eddie

[bumsteer]

Thanks for the info John, I'll give Lars a call.

Rick

[jrevens]

Two points to add. First, I spoke to Lars on Monday as I was trying to order new glue. The glue now is apparently premixed by the way. My glue came in three bottles and I don't have to mix anything. Lars advised that the expiration date is given as a worse case scenario on storage. I have stored them in the fridge and mine seems to be working well.
Second, I attempted to cut a four inch wide tape for the leading edge of my rudder. No matter how careful I was the edge is not straight. Not horrible but even the least attentive person would notice the edge being slightly off compared to the precut tape. I am ordering tapes of appropriate width for everything. Not inexpensive but worth it.
Just a pic of the horizontal I am working on.
Eddie

That looks very nice, Eddie! I really like the look of the silver. That's surprising if they only offer the glue pre-mixed. I think that if you didn't specify before, you'd get pre-mixed... maybe they changed the formulation? The shelf life of non- pre-mixed was considerably greater. The catalyst was in a very small bottle compared to the glue.

[Cherrybark]

That does look very nice. Silver 6000 was one of the colors in the swatches Lars sent as samples. It looks very traditional.

[efwd]

The silver tapes are very well matched. The yellow tapes match but I believe once applied, the density of two layers makes it look darker. Lovin the silver.

[foxbait]

Like your colors Eddie, I'm just getting into the covering as well, have decided to cut my own straight edge tapes and seems to be working out, using an Olfa cutter with the proper mat and a long straight edge. Have not tried home made tape around curves yet.
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