This seems to be one of the most challenging areas of the building process, finding a good source for covering in the US. I have looked high and low all over the net and have yet to find a source for the "right stuff" and here is what I have learned:
-The covering that works the way I want comes from Eastern Europe and is of course metric; .03mm or 30 microns thick. Domestic covering is sold as 1 mil or .001 (30 microns is .00118"). The problem with 1mil film here is that it is more than likely actually 92 gauge or .00092."
-The film is often referred to as "Mylar" which is like referring to cola as Coke. The film is a biaxially oriented polyester film or PET film. There are thousands of PET films and other types that look just like them on the market and they are all different. If you add in that they can be treated/coated to have different properties finding the right one is a long shot.
- Being small fish we have to find a retailler that has the right film for sale that we can use. I have been told that the Euro covering is used as book covers, "Mylar" is widely used in the archival industry to preserve documents, art suppliers often list film, etc. I have yet to nail down the "right stuff" with this trial and error shopping. The challenges have been super high minimum orders, wrong sizes, and lack of detail about the film.
Do you know where we can get "the right stuff?" Post up some comments below.
eles1
Seems like Phil at Wing House Cores had some stuff and I know Jeff Dawson also had a source.
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MYLAR COVERING MATERIAL/FOIL
10 micron clear 1/2 mil 13.6 gms. per sq. metre 10 metres x 315 mm wide £5.00 plus post
15 micron clear 3/4 mil 20.4 gms. per sq. metre 7.5 metres x 315 mm wide £5.00 plus post
see
http://www.freeflightsupplies.co.uk/
or
mike@freeflightsupplies.co.uk
More info here
http://www.laminatorwarehouse.com/la...aminating-film
500 ft about 14 lbs. postage about $30. Works out to about 10 cents/ft.
I just got a roll of this material. It irons on nicely, lower temperature than MonoKote. The actual roll weighs just 8 lbs, 500 ft, 25 inch wide.
John
Thanks for the info John, Bobby recently sent me some of that PVC that he is using and it works really well, very well in fact as far as covering. We have yet to test it in full on combat matches. Bob is using planes covered with it this weekend in PHX, so hopefully he will have great reviews and we can make it the norm.
ReplyDeleteLaminating film is not quite there for open structures like F2D planes. We used it with good success on 1/2A sized foam wings though. It is too stretchy and causes vibration in the wing that eats horsepower on the F2D planes.