Testing Rubber for Strength

Written by Don Slusarczyk Free Flight Indoor Column As seen in the July 2017 issue of Model Aviation. I have flown with batches of 10/97 and 3/02 Tan II rubber for many years, and my reserves are running thin. I wanted to do some comparison tests between the old Tan II and the current batches of TSS to see how rubber has changed throughout the years. Fred Pearce published two articles in the March and April 1979 issues of Model Aviation about his method of pull testing rubber. I have followed his method with one exception: I increased the 430 factor to 480 in his second…