Originally Posted by
bluestratos
Well after years of buidling some nice aircraft I decided to try the flitemetal covering. The plane is glassed, primed and wet sanded to 1200 grit untill the primer is almost as glossy as paint. Ok.. so I read everything thing I can find on flight metal, lay out all of the panel lines off of scale drawings, measure my first panel (bottom rear of fuse) cut out the fight metal to fit the tape outlined panel I am going to cover. I carefully pull the backing off and find out that the adhesive is very agressive but manage to get the piece placed about right(once it touches it sticks and repositioning creates mega wrinkles). I use my index finger to start working the metal into place starting at the center and working out. The panel is curved but not componded so it should be easy.. right? Wrong.. part way around the piece a wrinkle develops. I keep working it down thinking that I can burnish the wrinkel out. I start with the fiberous tool and things go well untill I hit the wrinkle.
So.. anyone out there have a lot of experience with this product. How do you get the wrinkles out... I can only guess that this is going to get worse as I move onto more and more complex areas. And how do you cut the material so you do not go too deep or too shallow? Any help is appreciated
Randy
Try placing a piece first at a corner, then work outward from the corner instead of the middle. Move in an arc with your fid or finger as you move across the piece, working bubbles and wrinkles out as you go. On compound curves you will have to burnish it as you go, and will have to overlap part of the material as you move over the apex of the compound. Then with a fine blade, scribe through both parts and burnish the cut line down. It will almost disappear. I use a lot of aluminum HVAC tape to "metallize" parts. It works well but you can't get panels as large as what Flite Metal can do. It takes practice and unfortunately can get frustrating and expensive when you have to remove a piece that got wrinkled or otherwise misaligned.