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Assist Aviation

Experimental Aircraft Built Your Way

Building Van's RV's & Other Aircraft Using YOUR Choice of Engine, Prop & Avionics!

Builder Tips

Quickly Remove Protective Film

For many of us building Standard Kits there are a lot of large parts of sheet aluminum that need the blue protective film removed before installing on the current stage of construction.  And for many of us those parts may have been on the shelf waiting for our attention for months or even years.  As time passes the blue film seems to adhere even harder and becomes more difficult to remove quickly.  I was recently working on my RV7 wings and began removing the plastic from the main wing skins, tank skins and leading edges.  After spending too much time just to get to the bare aluminum using the fingertip curling the plastic method I told myself there has to be a better way.  Below I have tried to show my method in pictures.  I cut time removing the film from one side of a wing skin from 45 minutes down to 10 minutes for BOTH sides.

Peel the protective film back from the edge about 2 inches.	Lay a piece of duct tape the width of the skin adhesive side up.	Lay the plastic peeled back earlier on the duct tape leaving half of the adhesive exposed.	Lay a wooden dowel a few inches longer than the width of the skin on top of the exposed adhesive of the tape and press the tape firmly in place on the dowel.
Tape is firmly in place around the dowel.	Using a pliers to grip the dowel begin rolling the film onto the dowel with slow even pressure.	Vise grips work well for this.	The film comes off very easily from the curved surface of a tank skin.
The whole process up to this point takes less than five minutes.	Make a cut in the film down one side of the dowel.	The film comes right off the dowel.	On the left is film from one side of a wing skin. On the right is film from the inside of one tank skin (removed in two sections). Saves time and trash can space!

 

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