Teflon sheets for smoothing finishing tapes

I got a couple of Highwing LLC's teflon sheets for smoothing finishing tapes "without the mess." They work!

The sheets are thin, and allow the transfer of heat quite easily through them into the Poly Brush and tape edges.

When NOT using the teflon sheets, I had to clean my irons like everyone else a few times, as at 225* it is just enough to melt the Poly Brush and stick to the iron. While R65-75 reducer removed the accumulated Poly Brush easily, it was still another step. That does not happen when using the sheets.

The sheets also do a pretty nice job of keeping the Poly Brush in place, and not allowing the iron to create those micro depressions in it. The sheets allow for better smoothing without the creation of these "iron tracks"

Hello GW,
saw your post and thought I would let you know about a little trick we used with the teflon sheets.

Rather than move the flat sheet around to each location you are trying to iron, we made a sock configuration to attach the sheet to the iron.

Made it very easy to iron where you needed to without the hazzle of moving the teflon sheet along the tape etc.

Hope the pic shows enough detail to visualize what we did.

The sheet would wear out gradually so we would just replace it with a new one and be on our way again. Did 14 planes this way.

Making the iron "teflon socks" is a great idea!

(BTW: Cleaning Poly Brush out of the large iron's 'steam holes' with a Q-Tip was not my idea of quality building time! So I finished my ironing of the tapes with the hobby iron... which is actually teflon coated... but the sheets still out-performed that teflon coated iron by it self.)

You can try this also if you'd like. Wax paper!! It transfers heat great without the polyspray mess on your iron. It worked great for me, hope this helps another builder!

Ive done the wax paper too :) works pretty good

Has anyone every tried using parchment paper that is used for baking ?

I have not tried it , but I think it should work.

I wish I had known about the use of Teflon sheets in time. I used Stewart Systems adhesive and it was annoying to have to clean the iron periodically. Looking at the pictures, it appears the tapes would have laid a little smoother. Not a big deal, but it would have been nice. By the way, my $15 Monokote iron worked better than my $50 Coverite iron.

For tapes I used a Monokote iron with nothing else (i.e. no sheets, etc.), and
had no troubles at all. I use the Polyfiber system. It's all about heat, timing,
and technique. A quick swipe across a rag usually gets most of the Polybrush
residue off the iron.

Regards,
Jeff

I have some clear plastic that came on a large 4' wide roll. It is probably about 6 mill for thickness and it's kind of stiff. A friend of mine gave me some of it and it works quite well for this job. I have 3 or 4 pieces cut about 6"x24" I use them one after the other, as sometimes the polybrush would stick and start to lift if it was still hot enough to melt to the plastic. By the time I iron down the fourth one, the first one is cold and pops right off the polybrush even if it stuck to the plastic a bit. I've even used it some with the polyspray if need be. It did kind of melt things and leave them somewhat as smooth as the plastic if there was enough material there, but the next coat covers it and the shiny surface goes away. This plastic stuff really helped to keep stubborn pinked edges down. I might have some pics, but they would be in my old PC which is not set up now. Jim Chuk

"TO FIX: Use a 225° iron with a pieceof plastic oven cooking bag or parchmentpaper as an ironing shield. If you irondirectly on Poly-Spray, it melts thevinyl and gets silver on the iron.Worse, it leaves iron track marks in thePoly-Spray. Messy. Better yet, get a thinpiece of sheet Teflon from a local plasticssupply store to use as an ironing shield.That keeps the Poly-Spray pretty much"

The info above is from the Polyfiber manual.
I used parchment for smoothing down the pinked edges of tapes and any little hiccup with PolySpray. It worked great.

What kind of Poly-Spray would you advise me to use?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alexsandro111

What kind of Poly-Spray would you advise me to use?

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PolySpray is a material from the PolyFiber company.
It is used as a ultraviolet barrier to protect the fabric.
Also as a foundation that can be sanded, for smoothness.

https://www.aircraftspruce.com/searc...r%20poly-spray

Thanks so much for the clarification and the link!

I suggest you click on the manual and go to chapter 8, for more info on PolySpray

https://4dc8cf9a-0bab-40d5-bd6e-ca9b...2c97c69571.pdf

Great, very detailed and understandable manual - also with illustrations:D