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Flap gap seals made from vertical venitian blinds
A buddy of mine is contemplating making his flap gap seals from the
thin PVC plastic blades salvaged from a set of vertical venitian blinds. The blades are very thin and flexible enough, and more than ample long enough, and are 3" wide, which will need trimmed down to about 2.5" wide so they don't stick too far aft into the path of the flaps' travel. The issue is how to attach them to the underside of the fiberglass wing effectively without making a mess of things. You can't really glue them since they're PVC and most glues don't stick so well. How about using some 3M double-sided thin foam mounting tape 1" wide along the full length and stick that to the underside of the wing in front of the flap gap, and then seal the leading edge of the PVC blade to the underside wing with a 1.5" wide strip clear vinyl 3M part #191 tape, with half the width of the tape covering the PVC blade and the other half sticking to the fiberglass wing itself to smooth the edge? I think it will hold on just fine, airspeeds will never exceed about 150mph in this plane, and I think there is even a production aircraft (one of the late-model composites) that attaches it's plastic gap seal strips to the underside of the wing with double-sided tape. Will it stay on? Losing it in flight probably won't pose any problems at all, other than littering. |
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Flap gap seals made from vertical venitian blinds
On Jun 19, 11:02 am, One's Too Many wrote:
A buddy of mine is contemplating making his flap gap seals from the thin PVC plastic blades salvaged from a set of vertical venitian blinds... Been there, tried that. The vast majority of window blind slats have too much curvature and are too stiff. That causes the seal to rub too hard on the flap, causing to much control friction. It also causes the seal to pry itself away from the double-sided mounting tape in short order. Also, the foam mounting tapes are typically .040" or .060" thick, which is way thicker than you want for good air flow. Here's where to get the stuff that works: http://www.wingsandwheels.com/page28.htm or http://store.williamssoaring.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc I typically use: Tesa 4965 mounting tape 25mm pre-curved mylar 12mm PVC anti-peel tape Sand both the wing (just where the mounting tape goes) and the underside of the mylar with 220 grit. Apply the mounting tape, then apply the mylar. Then use a ball bearing, skate wheel, or other roller to press the mylar down onto the tape and the tape down onto the wing. Then apply the anti-peel tape. And, yeah, if you really got the bug you can make your own pre-curved mylar, and you can substitute other stuff for the mounting tape and anti-peel tape. Been there and done that too, and wasted no few hours at it. |
#3
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Flap gap seals made from vertical venitian blinds
Excellent!
Bob, you are a saint! That pre-curved mylar is exactly what we need. I should've thought to go find out what the sailplane crowd was using. |
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