Re: Re: Anybody out there using....

From: <bsanborn_at_purdue.edu>
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:17:43 -0500

My favorite story about using my "glowing bright red" cautery to trim film was
from USIC a couple years ago.

I had to trim excess film from a patch I was doing on my LPP wingtip. The wing
tip is reinforced with embedded boron, held together with CA at the joint at the
top of the tip. When I touched the red-hot cautery to the tip to trim the film,
the 4.5# balsa went up in a flash of smoke. The boron and CA joint were
unaffected by the impulse of heat, which meant that the boron skeleton remained.
With 90% of the film still on the wing tip, I decided to fly the plane--which
did well; ending up with a second or third place at more than one USIC. Boy is
that plane ugly.

Brett Sanborn

Quoting john_kagan <john_kagan_at_hotmail.com>:

> Some cautery tools are *WAY* too hot for cutting film. As Bill mentioned, a
> 15 watt iron is about right. There are also cautery tools with adjustable
> temperatures (via a dial on the top).
>
> Worst case, blip the cautery on and then let it cool down a bit. Not easy to
> get right, but it works in a pinch.
>
> If it is glowing bright red, don't even bother trying to use it.
>
> BTW - at least you didn't try that on old-school microfilm. Then you would
> have had a nice big flash to go along with the traveling balsa embers :)
>
>
Received on Tue Jan 26 2010 - 12:17:48 CET