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. No luck so I try the sharpie pen that also serves as the hard tool for working the surface. No luck and the pen actually creates its own problems. I made a tool that has a rounded end and buffed it as smooth as glass.. no luck the wrinkles are there to stay. Not as bad as at first but very noticiable. So I pull off the piece to start again.. I use heat per instructions but the glue is tanatious and aluminum conducts the heat so quickly that the primer is screwed up. Once off glues is every where, which comes off with elbow grease and paint thinners.

Moving on to a new piece, same problems as before but not as bad of wrinkels. I create the cut line by burnishing the material down along the 3M fine line tape then taking a sharp rounded exacto blade as per instructions try to cut. The blade drags and fights the cut. I make serval passes then pull up the excess. I find that I have cut through the flight metal but not its adhesive which stretches out from under the fixed part before it lets go. The adhesive snaps back and cause small blemishes under the metal along its finished edge.

I tried one panel using windex per an artical I read on RC universe about a Jug covering. It must take days to evaporate because try as hard as I could to squeegy out the windex the panel remains wet, getting trapped between the fite metal and the primer. Mean while the tape that defines the outline lifts off from the wet and the panel lines put on with the supplied pen start to bleed and make a mess. It is impossible to cut the metal when it is wet as it slides around. Now what????

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