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Building Tips and technical articles. => 1/2 A building. => Topic started by: ray copeland on February 20, 2008, 08:34:29 PM
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Was cutting out some cloth hinges from some unknown fabric the other night when my wife walked by and says, why don't you just use medical tape? Well being an obliging hubby i asked what was she talking about. Turns out it is Johnson and Johnson cloth tape sold in the ailse with Bandaids. Absolutely perfect for cloth hinges, 1/2 inch wide and very strong, on a 5 yard roll for two bucks with a cutter built in the case. A little ca glue and done. I can't imagine using anything else from now on!!
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Don't look at this part of the forum too much, but, today I seen your post about the cloth hinges. Will have to check it out. Has the material held up well for you. For 2 bucks guess I will give it a try. DOC Holliday
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Hey Doc, so far so good , but just not that much testing yet. With the ole hand pull test it seems way stronger than any cloth i have used except maybe tyvek and it doesn't fray apart and so easy to cut nice straight hinges.
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So Ray, do you just ignore the adhesive on one side of the tape? Can you remove it with solvent or something? The end where it's "under" would be OK but the other end it would be exposed--how do you finish over it?
--Ray
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Hey Ray , i use the adhesive side to help me hold it in place initially, (big word!), but i just can spray my stuff, so finishing does not apply. Maybe some of the folks that do pretty work can help figure that part out for us. But for my applications it works great, just a little ca and so far so good. My spitfire i am "finishing" this week has them on it works great. Will post pics when done.
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I was very intrigued by the idea of using medical tape. I am building a Sterling F-51 for my 19 year old son. He loves to crash so a 20 point finish is NOT important. I used Johnson and Johnson 1" tape. I had read about Mono coat hinges and tried the same with the medical tape. I pulled off 2 strips about a foot long and laid one sticky side up and overlapped them about a quarter of an inch. I cut them into 1" strips and installed them. The adhesive is good but I rubbed them down with Ambroid glue. Looks nice. Will have to see how they hold up.
Best Regards,
Charles Meeks
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Interesting. I am concerned that the sticky on adhesive tape might soften in the hot sun.
The face-to-face Monokote hinge has served me well on planes done that way, even after decades of use.