Playing with fire?

[DanB]

Yesterday I was working along on a wing laying down the rib tapes and I noticed the edges of the pinked tapes actually curling up as I tried smoothing them down with Poly Brush. I was quite surprised at this phenomenon as I had not encountered it before (tail feathers and fuse are covered and taped).

I had followed the book laying down my first coat of Poly Brush, letting it dry then laying in a bed for the tapes. After letting that dry, one more wet bed, place the tape and brush it down, smoothing it out. I did make sure that the tape "curl" (the way it comes off the roll) was on the down side.

As I was going down the wing I tried a few things to see if I could save myself from becoming an ironing god (meaning an iron at 225 should secure these curls after they dry). Wet the tape first & lay it down...no good (& too messy), lay the tape and soak through the top without a wet bed...nada, I even tried peeling the tape up after I got it brushed in, turned it over and brushed it in again (which actually worked the best of all my trials but was too much a pain in the keester). I was half way down the wing when I resigned myself to knowing I will be spending time with the iron. Then I saw it...There was a little piece of lint on the wing and I tried to blow it off. It moved just a bit, but returned to it's point of origin. That's it! I'm battling an invisible foe called static electricity! So there I was, I identified the problem but didn't know how to slay the dragon. I thought of an anti-static spray product my wife uses sometimes, but didn't want to take a chance there might be something in it that could react with the Poly products. I did a search in the Matronics list and found a reference to using a 50/50 mix of rubbing alcohol and distilled water in a spray gun. That sounded good but wasn't sure if the rubbing alcohol was ok. Will wetting the floor resolve this issue?

So, here is a plea to those of you who have been down this road...What works?
Respectfully yours, Sparky