J

JimWoo50

Well Known Member
I put a strip of stainless steel tape (?) on the bottom of my top wing skin where the flap touches it and have noticed the flap is still being scratched. Any suggestions to stop this would be appreciated. Thanks.
 
McFly said:
The tape should go on the flap not the wing skin. I hope this helps.
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I agree with McFly and also and note that UHMW tape does not hold up well in the desert temps. Over time, it will eventually yellow and crack. The stainless steel tape placed on my flaps has served me well :D Rosie
 
I used 1/2" "mouse tape" a teflon tape sold on Ebay. Applied it on the wing under side of the te flap bay out of sight, very conformable thin stuff.
 
You are protecting the wrong surface

You are protecting the wrong surface from scratches. If you pull off the stainless steel tape (which you should do by the way) I'll bet anything that the undrside of the wing skin looks great and the aluminum surface of the flap has not scratched the stainless steel tape either. I have stainless that starts in an exact line with the trailing edge of the wing skin and follows the entire forward curve of the upper flap skin. When you carefully put new stainless steel tape on the flap this way it will prevent the underside of the aluminum wing skin from scratching the surface of the flap and it will give you a visual indication of flap deployment. Mine works extremely well.

Bob Axsom
 
Where to buy

Forgive, since I haven't gone and looked yet, but where does one purchase said st-st tape?
 
Several Sources

Van's used to provide it but I had to replace mine when I used the original for another task before I got to the flaps. I did a Google search and found a supplier somewhere in New York as I recall but there was a catch. They required something like a $100 minimum order. Well, when you are building an airplane you want the right stuff regardless of cost so I ordered several rolls in various widths up to 4 or 5 inches wide. I do not remember the supplier but I can dig it out of my receipt file if you need it. More importantly I just went in and did a Google search for stainless steel tape and it immediately spewed out a list of sources. A old chain of stores here in the states called Western Auto used to cary 3" wide rolls of it so you may be able to find it at that kind of a store in your area. There was a thread on the subject a few years ago at this website and sources were named in it.

Bob Axsom
 
Ta muchly

Cheers Bob (and tobin); I'll the google thing and restrict in to NZ (at first), see what comes up...
 
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