Ground Support, Manufacturing & MRO Materials

A peelable low-tack film matched to the finish and the clock. The 4040 low-tack class protects delicate and freshly finished faces; the Polymask 5180C class carries general handling protection on metalwork; dedicated glass film covers transparencies. Selection is two numbers and a date: enough adhesion (per ASTM D3330 on the film TDS) to survive the work steps, little enough to peel clean from that specific finish, inside the film's rated exposure window.

Die-cut blanks matched to panel geometry install faster and miss less than knife-trimmed roll stock. Test peel behavior on the actual finish before fleet-wide use, and put the removal date on the traveler. [4]

PTFE in three formats. PTFE-coated fiberglass tape (the 6085 series, silicone PSA, 500 °F) is the bench standard: dimensionally stable under cure-cycle heat, cleanable, reusable across cycles, applied to bench tops, tool aprons, and iron shoes. Unsupported DW2000 skived PTFE film (AMS 3662C, 500 °F) is the separator and release film, and the adhesive-backed 6113-05 / 6113-10 PTFE tapes (350 °F) serve tighter geometry: separator sheets, wrap liners, and slip layers, chemically inert with friction behavior per ASTM D1894 on the TDS.

Both are process materials supporting your approved process documentation. Treat them as consumables with a replacement cadence and lot traceability: a scratched release sheet prints its history into the next part, and the cadence is what prevents it. [8]

Dunnage designed so the packaging itself cannot become foreign object debris, the discipline NAS 412 frames by designation. Three material rules do most of the work: closed-cell construction (crosslinked PE like the 6085 series cuts clean cavity walls and keeps them; open-cell and friable foams shed), cavity-per-part layouts (every absence visible at a glance, no place for extras to hide), and rated reuse (a worn tray is a FOD generator with a part number).

EPE carries economical few-trip duty; Ensolite-class liners protect delicate contact faces; foam methods per ASTM D3575 on the TDSs. Give trays drawings and replacement cadences like any tooling. [1] [2]

By the SAE grade designations on the felt TDS. The dense F-1 class carries firm pads, washers, and wear interfaces; F-10 and the service grades carry general cradle-liner and wipe duty; the Atlas Bearing rubber pads (natural rubber and neoprene, 50–70 Shore A) cover loaded support points rather than wipe duty. Felt earns its place on aerospace floors for two properties: it is compliant and non-marring against finished surfaces, and it holds its fibers under wipe duty, the FOD-friendly behavior loose cloth does not share.

Replace pads on a cadence before they load with grit, because a grit-loaded felt pad becomes a lapping tool. H-O pads, strips, washers, and wipe blocks to the fixture drawing. [5]

Pick by the motion at the interface. Felt is compliance: cradles, polishing, the gentle restraint of finished parts, non-marring contact that absorbs small movements. UHMW is slide: guide rails, ramps, chafe strips, anywhere parts or straps move across the interface daily, with low friction per ASTM D1894 and long abrasion life. Cork and rubberized cork are grip: stacking pads and clamp faces that hold position without biting, the classic Wonder Pads duty between finished panels and glass.

All three to the fixture drawing so the pad is a part number with a material lot, not a drawer improvisation, and the wear answer is a reorder, not a mystery mark. [3]

Like tooling: duty cycle first, then material, then drawing. State the expected trips, the part weights, and the handling environment; that sets the foam class (ClipFoam crosslinked PE, 2–6 pcf, holds cavity geometry through repeated trips, with compression behavior per ASTM D3575 on the TDS; EPE serves few-trip economics). Lay out cavity-per-part so counts are self-evident, line delicate contact faces with Ensolite-class sheet, and put the tray under revision control with a replacement cadence.

The quiet specification win: when parts stop sitting precisely, the tray is announcing its retirement, and a drawn tray gets replaced by part number instead of debated. [2]

Yes, and kitting is usually where the savings live. H-O ships consumables as installation-ready sets: film blanks to panel geometry and stacked in application order, kiss-cut pad sets that peel in sequence, felt and cork pads bagged per fixture, and dunnage trays delivered as numbered kits per work order. Nested die layouts cut scrap out of the material buy, and consolidating a dozen ad-hoc consumable purchases into a few drawn part numbers simplifies both purchasing and the audit trail.

Send the part family and the flow, not just one part; engineering quotes the kit as a kit, with the records (lots, TDS, certificates of conformance) that let the consumable layer pass review.

Not when three conditions hold: the adhesion class matches the finish, the paint reached its cure state before application, and the film leaves within its rated exposure window. Residue events almost always trace to one of those three: a general-tack film on a delicate or under-cured coating, or any film left months past its window, where UV and time change the adhesive's character.

The discipline: pick the class from the film TDS (low-tack 4040 for delicate faces), verify clean peel on the actual finish before fleet-wide use, and carry a removal date on the traveler. Adhesion is reported per ASTM D3330 on the film TDS; the exposure window is the line to respect. [7]

No, and they do not need to be: this page's materials protect and process flight hardware rather than flying on it. What they do need, and what aerospace audits increasingly ask of the consumable layer, is documentation: drawings with revisions, material lot traceability, TDS on file, and certificates of conformance at receiving. H-O supplies converted consumables exactly that way under an ISO 9001:2015 certified quality management system.

Where a converted part does cross into flight or program-controlled use, that boundary is identified at quote and the part is handled under the customer's applicable requirements; nothing on this page claims flight certification, and the honest scope is precisely what makes the consumable layer auditable.

Rebonded neoprene is the economical heavyweight: high-mass damping pads cut to footprint for equipment stands, crate bases, and shop machinery, absorbing structure-borne vibration and protecting both the floor and the hardware. Density-graded closed-cell foams (SCE-class neoprene, vinyl nitrile) carry mid-weight duty, and rubberized cork takes clamp-and-hold points where grip matters. Foam classes per ASTM D1056 methods on the TDSs.

Size pads so the static load lands in the material's working range, the same strain logic as any cushioning, and the pad keeps damping instead of bottoming into a solid block. Send footprint and weight with the RFQ for sizing review.

Routinely. Send the physical sample, the worn pad, the tray insert, the film blank, and engineering measures it, identifies a documented material family that matches the duty (often upgrading an anonymous foam to a graded, TDS-backed equivalent), and returns a drawing for approval. From then on the consumable is a revision-controlled part number with lot traceability, reorderable without the archaeology.

This is also the cleanest path to consolidations: a floor's accumulated drawer stock usually maps to a handful of families, and the consolidated buy is cheaper and auditable. An industry cross-reference is provided where applicable, matched on the duty-relevant properties and verified against the TDS, not a guaranteed drop-in.

Yes; the families carry over with the documentation dialed up. Launch-site and integration-floor work uses the same protective films, PTFE process surfaces, felt and cork pads, and kitted dunnage, often with cleanroom-conscious kitting (double-bagging, lot labeling to the traveler) and the aerogel insulation set on facility cryo lines.

The space-side framing, outgassing documentation, venting, cleanroom kitting, lives on the spacecraft & launch vehicle materials page; this page carries the production-floor depth. One converter across both keeps the part-number discipline continuous from the shop to the pad.

The drawing (DXF, STEP, or PDF), a sample part, or the hardware it protects, plus the job context: the surface or part being protected, work steps and exposure window for films, cure-cycle exposure for release surfaces, motion at the interface for pads (compliance / slide / grip), trips and loads for dunnage, and the kitting format the line wants. Every part is made to order; sample and production lead times are listed in the process strip above and confirmed with your quote through the form below.