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Pink-It
636 Hillman Dr.
Winchester, VA 22601
ph evenings Eastern Time
540-6672877
ask for Gary 
 

What is Pink-It?

Pink-It is a scaled down version of pinked edge finishing tapes used on full size aircraft. We actually cut our Pink-It from either Solartex or Nelson Hobby’s Lite Fab which are both excellent, easy to apply iron on fabric coverings for model airplanes.

 

Many older aircraft, as well as some newer homebuilt aircraft are fabric covered. The fabric covering was (is) usually attached to the aircraft frame by sewing, but I have heard that some aircraft had the fabric attached by other means. You will need to research what type method was used on your particular aircraft.

 

Finishing tapes were applied over the stitches that were used to sew the fabric to the frame. This was done to seal the stitches and reinforce the fabric where the stitch was applied. They were also applied in areas to reinforce the fabric covering. These finishing tapes are narrow strips cut from the same fabric used for the covering. The problem with cutting narrow strips of fabric is that the edges tend to unravel and fray while handling the strips. Some aircraft even had frayed edge finishing tapes. Pinking shears were invented to reduce the fraying of cut woven fabric.

 

Now to open a can of worms.

 

When were pinking shears first used on aircraft finishing tapes? It is usually thought that early aircraft up until the 1930’s used either a straight edge or frayed edge finishing tapes. Most cite the idea that pinking shears were not invented until the early 1930’s, so they had to use a straight edge finishing tapes because pinking shears were not invented yet. Well, here goes some breaking news. There was a patented granted to a L. Austin on January 3, 1893 the patent number is 489,406. Please do a search on this patent number it has a pretty nice drawing of several types of pinking shears. I think some get the 1930 era from a patent that the Wiss cutlery and the Pinking Shear Corp. of America received on March 17, 1932 the patent number is 1,965,443.
 
What does this 1893 patent prove? Actually nothing. But it does prove that the first patent for pinking shears was applied for long before the 1930's. And one must remember, pinking shears were not invented for making finishing tapes for airplanes. They were invented for the textile industry to help reduce the edges of fabric from unravling.
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