Peel Ply fibers

[GuinnessGuy74]

I pulled my peel-ply off the seatback the other day. Some of the strands on the edge stayed on the surface. I was expecting all of it to come off and the fact that some was left bothered me. I cut my strips from a 48" roll. Is there a way to keep the stray fabric from sticking to the layup? Or do you just sand them off when you sand the area prior to another layup? Maybe not wet out the peel ply all the way to the edge?

 

Thanks for the help...

 

Jim

[Lynn Erickson]

I pulled my peel-ply off the seatback the other day. Some of the strands on the edge stayed on the surface. I was expecting all of it to come off and the fact that some was left bothered me. I cut my strips from a 48" roll. Is there a way to keep the stray fabric from sticking to the layup? Or do you just sand them off when you sand the area prior to another layup? Maybe not wet out the peel ply all the way to the edge?

 

Thanks for the help...

 

Jim

just sand them off.

[Drew Swenson]

As stated---just sand them off (I use a dremel to do this). The peel ply is not intended to pull off the extra "hairs" like using a bikini wax:D ---but rather to give a transition zone if you will from the edge of one piece of glass to the layer you are bonding to. To see this yourself, try one with peel ply and one without. You will notice that on the one without, that you can't drag your fingers across the transition without sticking (or cutting) your fingers. The one with, leaves a nice transition zone by filling in the prickly edges with epoxy.

 

You can also peelply the edges like on your seatback to give a nice bonding surface for when you bond the back to the fuselage wall. If you did not do this, you would just need to roughen up the bonding surface with a dremel. The peel ply is better since you won't remove any glass material by mistake.

[GuinnessGuy74]

Thanks for the suggestions, guys.

 

Drew, I am not talking about the fiberglass fibers. I mean when I tear off the peel ply, some of the fabric fibers from the edge of the peel ply strip stay behind. When I peeled it off I have a few cloth fibers that are epoxied onto the layup. I guess this is a result of the peel ply edge that is cut from the roll. I dont know if this is avoidable. I figured I can just sand them off as was suggested...

 

Thanks again!

 

Jim

[TMann]

I had the same thing happen to me.

 

If you have a selvage edge on your peel ply, you need to make a clean cut before using to avoid this.

[Vacabrava]

Some times this happen to me. I just pull off the cloth yarns with the point of one stileto.

Wel, often peel ply dishevelled and is not so deep.

I think sand is a bad idea, since you can reach the fiberglass trying to get the yarns out.

Cheers.

[Cozy1200]

I've tried several things but with no real success.

 

Light sanding seams to get rid of most of it, but it's still visible.

 

One time I tried to fuse it the fibers with a light flame. I was hoping that it would melt it, making hard/brittle, then sand it away. That really didn't work at alll. I was too scared of melting the glass & foam.

 

I don't remember who, but someone said if you cut your peel-ply on the bias (like bid; 45 degrees) then the problem goes away. I haven't tried it, but I probably will sometime.

[GuinnessGuy74]

Drew,

 

Kinda funny, I thought about doing the flame thing, but in reverse. I thought about running a quick flame over the edge BEFORE I laid it down in hopes of fusing any loose ends.

 

I might give the 45 bias trick a try on my next layup....

 

Jim

[TMann]

I don't know about cutting it at a 45. I know that if I make a straight cut that this is not a problem The last roll I got had a clean edge to it so I didn't have to do this.

 

The other possibility is the type of peel ply you use. I'm using 4.7 oz. Dacron (ACS Part#09-00300). Someone gave me some leftover peel-ply tapes and I tried them out and really didn't like the results. I went back to cutting them off of the big roll.

[Wayne Hicks]

Use a piece of peel ply larger than the area you want to peel ply. Don't wet out to the edge of the PP. This will stop the stray PP fibers.

[Drew Swenson]

Wayne, that was too simple---stop it.

[JTest]

G'day

 

Wayne is right, but I guess we could still cut it at 45 degrees just to make it harder. LOL

 

Or better yet use the wrong instructions and just redo the whole chapter. That way you really don't care if you have a few fibers. You'll just be happy to get something done without a redo-over again! Bloody stupid of me!

 

Jeff

[TMann]

Use a piece of peel ply larger than the area you want to peel ply.

that's good for most but you still have to deal with it for the canard, CS Spar, Wing etc.

 

Keep all the Ideas in your toolbox.

[Lynn Erickson]

that's good for most but you still have to deal with it for the canard, CS Spar, Wing etc.

 

Kepp all the Ideas in your toolbox.

actually you don't even need to use peel ply at all. when they built the first long ezs they did not use peel ply. and then Burt said to only use it sparingly for bonding surfaces only, not the complete part as it does add more resin to the part and therefore, more weight

[mfryer]

actually you don't even need to use peel ply at all. when they built the first long ezs they did not use peel ply. and then Burt said to only use it sparingly for bonding surfaces only, not the complete part as it does add more resin to the part and therefore, more weight

However the shear web and spar caps should be peel plied. You may be able to leave the peel ply a little wide for the spar caps, but I don't see how the shear web could be treated that way.

 

I agree a little car full light sanding works fine to remove those few stubborn threads at times.

[George Sychrovsky]

if its leaving strands start pulling it from the opposite direction

[Cozy1200]

Use a piece of peel ply larger than the area you want to peel ply. Don't wet out to the edge of the PP. This will stop the stray PP fibers.

I would agree. Try to use one piece. Sometimes using multiple pieces helps the peel-ply lay down better.

[GuinnessGuy74]

Thanks for all the advice. I think I am going to do what I first thought (and what Wayne suggested), which is to not wet out the fabric all the way.

 

A light sanding seemed to remove most of what was left on there anyway. So its not as big a deal as I first thought...

 

Jim

[TMann]

Thanks for all the advice. I think I am going to do what I first thought (and what Wayne suggested), which is to not wet out the fabric all the way.

 

YES! Put your peel ply down and get out the squeege and blow dryer. You should have plenty of available epoxy already in the layup to wet it out nicely.