RE: Effective application of flat aluminum tape to double curved surfaces?

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Lau, Gary by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <Gary.Lau-at-compaq-dot-com>

I think you identified the problem - it's the tight radius of a small
form that makes it difficult.

One thing that can help is cutting down the width of the tape strips.
It normally comes on a 2" wide roll.  Cutting it down to 1" wide will
allow it to go on with fewer wrinkles, though you now have twice as many
strips to cut and apply :-(

It's unclear if the flattened wrinkles will actually have any
detrimental effect on performance.  I assume your concern is for
aesthetics, equally important for me too!

Regards, Gary Lau
MA USA


Original poster: "David Knaack by way of Terry Fritz
<twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <dknaack-at-rdtech-dot-com>

Ok, I picked up toroidal foam form from the craft store, and
a 50 yard roll of Al tape.  The form is 12" O.D. and 8.5" I.D.
It is made of some remarkably tough stuff, most normal humans
would be hard-pressed to crush or dent it with one hand.

I've wrapped it with one layer of tape, winding it in a spiral
with about 1/4" overlap on each layer.  After rubbing it with
the back of a spoon and wiping off all the black stuff 
(aluminum oxide I presume), it looks about like I expected,
covered in lots of really flat wrinkles :)

Is there a way to get this stuff really smooth, or am I just
out of luck with this fairly tight radius?

DK