On the matter of
tapes for wing to fuselage, tailplane stabiliser to fin, sealing control access
hatches to fuselage and alike, my view is that a lot of what is sold as PVC
"electical tape" is rubbish. In fact anything of that nature under the
Morey Haig or Lion name in hardware stores is of such poor quality that I
think it is scandalous that it can sold as "electrical tape" which surely in the
first instance is sold to safety electrical installation work for years and not
just for the next five minutes.
The three brands of
flexible white PVC "electrical tape" that I have confidence in for the
above usage are:
1.
Nitto,
2.
Wattmaster, as sold by Radio Parts in Melbourne (not sure they have branches
interstate), and
3.
Ripper, as sold by the electrical industry suppliers Middendorp's who have that
shocking pink(?) store colour.
You may find others
of the major electrical industry suppliers, AWM, etc. also supply good stuff as
the electrical trades people hopefully don't tolerate crap tape from their
suppliers.
These three above
all seem to stand up to the heat and time in the sun and not fall off in 5 to 7
days like the Haig/Lion & similar crap has
regularly.
We were able to get
Nitto in 25 mm wide but we haven't found a source of this wider version
in the last 2 years. It may be that we weren't trying hard
enough.
As for aileron to
wing etc. hinge line sealing with simple tape, eg. Std Cirrus rudder, Tesa
waterproof cloth tape is great and worth the money. BDF Leucosilk in 5 cm
wide 5 m rolls from the Chemist also works well but it is a bugger to remove the
adhesive if the tape is left on too long as the adhesive is gooey on
removal. Sometimes you can get Leucosilk in 9m rolls at not much cost
above 5m rolls. Cloth tape sold in stationary stores as a book binding
tape ("Wotan" is one brand) cannot be recommended as the adhesive eventually
sets like concrete and is an absolute bugger to remove.
I don't bother with
clear "All weather" tapes or similar. When I've tried it on sealing a
building roof against water ingress, I found it flapping in the breeze
after 5 months. Then again this and related variants will have quality and
characteristic variations which mean that maybe I had a bad batch or maybe
it was a good batch and 5 months was good!!
I also advocate
replacing control surface hinge line tapes regularly because that in combination
with decent tape material means that firstly there will be no trouble in service
and secondly the tape adhesive will come away with the tape so that it is easy
to clean up prior to applying new material. The tape is not expensive
relative to safety.
Even the beaut Tesa
cloth tape will let go if left on indefinitely.
The clock is about
to roll over to Sunday. I'd better stop here else my diatribe
might launch in to a sermon.
Cheers
Roger
Druce
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