Alright, I forgot to glue on the cloth wing reinforcing tape down the center of my PT40 wing. Of course, I've finished covering it and I am reviewing the manual to see if I've missed anything. What's the deal with that stuff? Do you cover over it? I could just cut out a strip of covering and glue it on and re-cover it I suppose. Ideas?

Yea, like you said, cut the covering, glue tape, recover.

Gil

the fiberglas strip is reienforcement for the wing ,to keep it from breaking in half , when it is loaded during flight,

your Idea is a reasonable approach to the problem, and yea you cover over the stripe of reinforcement , once it is done consider useing a different color for the patch, makes it look custom istead of a mistake ,:-)

Highlander

oddly, I never noticed it on anyone else's plane. I'll cover over it and it won't look that bad. I just want to get it in the air at this point. It's my first plane.

Ha! I had the same question, I have a Pt-20 and I didn't know whether you cover over it or not (I didn't forget to put it on). It looks rather bulky... Are you supposed to sand it?

I've asked my father a lot of questions while building my plane because he used to be in the hobby when I was first born, he never finished building his second plane and he didn't use that fiberglass cloth thing that came with my kit... so... he couldn't help me there...

Yes, sand it then cover it.

Gil

WhiteKnuckles,
Yes, definitely do go through the trouble of adding it.

One of your first flights might otherwise reflect your name. (Followed by a sickening 'thud'!)
Dennis-

If you want it to look perfectly smooth, you'll want to pick up some lightweight filler to apply to the edges and maybe fill the weave pattern. Apply light coates and sand a lot.

The cloth (fiberglass or nylon or whatever) adds a lot of strength where the forces are highest. Folding a wing is no fun.

A technique that will save you a lot of sanding when you use fiberglass and epoxy is to take a strip of Saran Wrap (like used in the kitchen as a food wrap) and put it over the fiberglassed area, smooth it out with your hand so no wrinkles or folds are visible and leave in on overnight while the epoxy cures. When you take the wrap off the next day, the finish will be smooth as glass and not require any sanding.

Rodney, That's exactly what I do and it works great.

I use Elmers Carpenters glue instead of the epoxy. It's less of a mess and the covering sticks to it better.

Tom

definatly! the work will save a crash

my friend had a pt-20 and he didn't put that fiberglass on and just used some duct tape, well it crashed. put it on.