ORIGINAL: abufletcher Has anyone used FliteMetal to cover an ABS cowl? Can it handle the curves? Does anyone have any pics of this?
© can be applied to plastics, fiber glass, fiber glass covered wood, unpainted aircraft surfaces. Lacquer, two part automotive, and non-baseline enamel painted airframes can be covered. If Formula-U or urethane-enamel painted surfaces exist they tend to not work well because those paints tend to out-gas for months after being painted.
© utilizes smoothly flow coated acrylic adhesive which is stable well above 150 degrees F. Most gutter tapes found in home stores utilize unevenly coated and less expensive rubber adhesive. Rubber adhesives begin to out-gas when heated to as little as 80 degrees F. The high tac adhesive coating on back of
© will not bubble or out-gas when the airframe is exposed to heat from exposure to direct sunlight in the summer. This condition is one of the two problems related to use of rubber adhesives on gutter tapes. The second differential is the gutter tape is highly annealed compared to
© which can be applied to complex convex and concave surfaces of giant scale aircraft with no problem.
Unlike metallic plastic films or tapes which are extruded termo-set plastic materials which retain their original shape and will always try to return to their original shape due to something called "shape memory" of initial shape state,
© is dead soft enabling as much as 20% stretch of area mass. Gutter tapes rarely stretch over 5 to 9 percent.
© can be applied in either 6" (AM-AK625/650) or 12" (AM-AK125/1210) widths to provide appropriate scale panel widths for all giant scale designs being sold today.
The largest known panel is the side panel which runs from the inlet back under the wing on the BVM MIG-15. That is approximately a panel size of 11 inches tall by 28 inches in length.
© is applied to large panels like a decal of the same size. Instead of water (as used with decals), Windex is sprayed onto the aircraft surface as a flow agent permitting positioning (sliding) of
© panel into correct position prior to burnishing onto the surface.
Hopefully, this answers some of the
© questions appearing in this thread.