vinyl wrap

At 06:33 04 October 2018, Fraser Wilson wrote:
I considered doing this but one of the problems I came across is
the 3M 1080 film, probably the best on the market, is only
available in a 1.5 m (correction from previous) width, which is
not wide enough to do a
seamless job on my wing (single seat 15m). I understand it
shrinks with age so any seams will tend to open. So I went for
paint.

I’ve since found another gloss white film manufacturer offering a
2.5m width, but it’s service durability is unproven, unlike 1080.

I would be interested in any pictures of the twin Astir, which film
they used, how they’ve done seams and how the film is
standing
up to the test of time.

Fraser


t 03:50 04 October 2018, AS wrote:
On Wednesday, October 3, 2018 at 9:28:19 PM UTC-4, Randy
Teel wrote:
On Wednesday, October 3, 2018 at 4:59:11 PM UTC-7,

wrote=
:
Greetings all, I was wondering if anyone here has any
information or
ex=
perience with vinyl wraps for wings, control surfaces, fuselage
on
sailplan=
es, It seems that this product would be pretty easy to use on
ailerons,
ele=
vators and rudders and would be insignificant weight gains.
Iknow that it
i=
s used in aviation. I think that the biggest issue may be static
electricit=
y and any drag resulting from dust adhered to surface of the
wing due to
st=
atic electricity
=20
I have seen an entire Twin Astir wrap and it looks beautiful. I
have
also=
the rudder on an ASW27 wrapped. Send me an email and I
will
forward the
i=
nformation/contact to you.
=20
Randy


Here is a nice video showing how it is done on a glider for
decorative
purp=
oses. Pretty neat!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DjVSxEuOZMFE

Uli
'AS'

Hi all,
I am just starting to sand my wings this week. I work in a sign shop and would cost me almost nothing to wrap my wings. However, I will paint the wings instead the vinyl wrap and I tell you why. Even if you use best car vinyl it will crack soon if you did not use the best UV protection film, like the 3M 8508 or Trigon 3mil gloss laminate. At work we have new car wraps daily. Before we can start we have to take off the old wrap. If the wrap was less than 3 years old it will come off easily long as the installer did not use additional glue/cement at the edges or on sharp curves. We had cars that did not have UV protector laminates and we had to sand off the whole car, it wasn’t pretty sight, the vinyl almost bakes to the surface. Normally during the installation, we heat up the vinyl to F 350-400 with a heat gun as we lay down the vinyl. With that we can stretch and form the vinyl.. This could over heat the skin. If you still decide to use a car wrap on the wings make sure to tell the installer not to use excessive heat! It is possible to install the wrap cold, with soap and alcohol mixture but I never tried in on a wing.
The other problem that I can see that the vinyl cracks in cold if flexes, good example would be the wing. We are losing wraps on plastic bumpers all the time. I am also questioning that the FAA would let you wrap legally a glider with a standard airworthiness certificate.
Good look experimenting, but please remove the wrap in every tree years.