Before I found Kevlar thread at my local fly tying shop I used un-waxed dental floss. Worked great! I wrapped it down flat, soaked it with CA. Dental floss is tought as nails and about as strong and CHEAP!

I use Kevlar thread or tow now and CA it just to keep it from moving around on the spar. You don't need to glue it down for added strenght.

As far as twist, I can not remember ever having a twist in a wrapped spar. Most of the time, you wrap just enough to keep any spar cap( carbon or what ever) in place. Most of the wraps are in the wing connector box area. I don't ever remember a recommendation thats you torgue the wraps down to a pound or ounce rateper inch, so where is the twist coming from?

Gary

I guess the twist is coming from over tension of the wrap. But lets get a grip, only one guy has mentioned it right? If you are spar wrapping on a spar with ribs, leading edge and trailing edge fitted that chance of a twist forming is less still. remember the wrapping is just to keep the spar top and bottom from separating as the spar flexes under load.

Recently I had to repair the left outer spar on my Wanderer as a result of a gust of wind lifting the Wanderer's right wing just before landing and the left wingtip's initial contact with the ground accompanied with that unwelcome 'kra-crunch' sound.

Could not find my small supply of kelvar tow but had a old sample of Glide (no kidding) dental tape which felt slick but I could not scrape off any wax from it with my fingernail. CA'ed the spar after aligning the wing and used thin ply to 'sandwitch' the spar and wrapped the Glide dental tape with epoxy and the repair has held up well so far.

Checked the Glide floss website and their dental tape is available 'lightly waxed.' I did check my old sample dental tape to see if it would stay embedded in epoxy after the epoxy set up and I could not pull out my dental tape from the hardened epoxy.

I thought Glide was Teflon-coated. I haven't ever tried gluing Teflon, but if epoxy is sticking to it, okay...

The glue doesn't have to stick to the wrap material. It just needs to keep the wrap from sliding spanwise.

Originally Posted by HIR/Cer

Recently I had to repair the left outer spar on my Wanderer as a result of a gust of wind lifting the Wanderer's right wing just before landing and the left wingtip's initial contact with the ground accompanied with that unwelcome 'kra-crunch' sound.

Could not find my small supply of kelvar tow but had a old sample of Glide (no kidding) dental tape which felt slick but I could not scrape off any wax from it with my fingernail. CA'ed the spar after aligning the wing and used thin ply to 'sandwitch' the spar and wrapped the Glide dental tape with epoxy and the repair has held up well so far.

Checked the Glide floss website and their dental tape is available 'lightly waxed.' I did check my old sample dental tape to see if it would stay embedded in epoxy after the epoxy set up and I could not pull out my dental tape from the hardened epoxy.

Just ordered some of this stuff off flea-bay, and it arrived today. It's the best looking kevlar I've come across, in terms of ease of application. Hope this helps someone!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/110996914776...84.m1497.l2649

Just ordered some, thanks for sharing!

Ya know, I've been giving this some additional consideration. If you use a thinned down carpenters glue, just to get it "wet" enough so it will absorb into the fibers of the wrapping, then wipe away any excess you can probably save yourself some weight and get the same job done. Just saying...

LV, thank you for the 'fee-bay' lead for the kelvar. Should order some to replace my misplaced kelvar. Built that Wanderer with Satellite City CA and Hobby Lobby epoxy, the latter used for joining the inner and outer wing spars and the wing joiner tubes, and everything has held up well over the years. The spar break occured about 1/2" beyond where the spars were epoxied together, and I figured out why it broke there.