Quote Originally Posted by FlyingRon View Post
Cutting a hole is a valid test, but it's not what the manufacturer recommends. The recommendation is to keep the finish service in good order and as long as you do so the underlying weave will last forever. If you allow the surface to deteriorate the underlying weave is suspect and you can punch it all you want and there's no guarantee of anything.

All this punching and other fabric lore dates from the old cotton/linen days. Polyester is a different beast. As already pointed out there are underlying differences from surface prep of whatever parts of the airframe that you are going to apply this to, to how you stick it down, to how you apply the UV protection coats, it's only once you get above these functional layers that you can even begin to think about safely deviating from the manufacturer's recommendations with regard to the color coats.

Ron,
Relying on the condition of the fabrics finish to determine the condition of the fabric takes a couple of assumptions into account:

1-That the fabric is not recieving any kind of UV from the back side (i.e. through a cockpit)
2-(the big one) That the person doing the finish actually followed the STC.

You can have a beautiful finish that lacks UV protection (lack of silver coats etc), so unless YOU did the work yourself to know for sure the STC was followed, what is one left with to test their fabric?