Rip stop on air devil
 

Has anyone used rip stop nylon for covering on the air devil instead of the packing tape suggested? Joe

RE: Rip stop on air devil
 

I have used the rip stop and it works great. You must be careful what kind of spray glue you use. Most of them will destroy the foam. You can use 3M 77 if you spray it lightly, too heavy and it will attack the foam. I don't spray both sides, I put a coat of glue on the wing core and don't let it dry, immeditaly apply the rip stop and rub it down. It really helps to have some help so you can grab all four corners and stretch the material out and lay it in place with few wrinkles.

RE: Rip stop on air devil
 

Thanks for the reply. I've used rip stop on my Battrick and used water based polyurathane to get it to stick, worked great. When you mentioned clear masking tape, I had no idea what you meant so I went to our local True Value Hardware and started looking through the selection of various tapes. The only one out of a gazillion types I found that would come close to what I thought you were talking about was clear duct tape so I bought a role.talk about a lucky guess. I'll give it a shot. I plan to used a Thunder Tiger Pro 36 or possibly a OS 25 FX for power. We do have some combat in my area but not a whole lot and I must admit I'm not up on the various class rules. I guess its time to join the national! Joe

RE: Rip stop on air devil
 

Duct tape is extremely heavy and not worth the weight, IMHO. We used to use ripstop on all our combat planes. IT is indeed very tough. BUT it is also more difficult to repair, and it tends to lift if you fly in the wet (ie damp/dew in the morning, on/off rain, etc.). When you have a midair in combat, a lot of times the foam wing core will crack or break. It's often repairable by injecting some PU glue into the cracks. with ripstop, this is tough because you don't want to cut out a patch of the covering. Whereas with a tape covering, you can remove a small area, fix the core, and retape. Tape is also lighter. For these reasons, and others, we have stopped using ripstop and gone fully over to tape. Durability does suffer a bit, but repairability increases, so I think the tradeoff has been good, plus the lighter weight, and not having to deal with the lifting issue.

If you really want to try ripstop nylon (RSN), the way we used to do it that worked pretty well is cut your ripstop out, soak it in warm water while you coat the wing with water-based polyurethane (WBP). Have the ailerons attached, with strips of masking tape, or conentional CA hinges (your choice), and use the RSN as the aileron hinge. take the RSN out of the water and shake off the excess. Then lay it on the wing, and brush it on with more WBP. Do one side at a time, overlapping over the LE (the RSN won't make the "turn" over the TE so you'll have to just let it hang over the edge, and trim off when dry). Now you have a living hinge of RSN, but it will separate so you need to stitch down the hinge line with some strong thread, to keep the hinge together. NOW you will have a nearly bulletproof hinge.

good luck and have fun