Originally Posted by
rotarywrench
With blade tape, there are 2 materials, Clear plastic has the disadvantage that it may come partially "unglued" and only part, (10" eg) and this free end will flop around anchored by the glued end making quite a noise and startling the occupants. The alternate is to use the metal tape which has a failure mode that it has gotten peened and the ragged end will rip off . Taking the metal tape off when it is used poses a danger as the peened metal is very sharp, lots of stories about sliced hands. Handle only with pliers! With both tapes surface prep is important and time consuming to take the old glue remnant, 1.5 hrs/blade would not be uncommon.
The stainless steel strips are a better alternative. You only run into problems with extreme life limiting environments, desert or constant torrential rain. With a quick search I could not find an STC for the strips for 505 blades.
Cheers
I have experienced the Bell 206 (STC) stainless steel strips becoming debonded (applied from new by blade shop) after a short time, several expensive down time visits to blade shop to get them sorted. I even know of a maintenance manager who was " reprimanded and warned of risk of his licence loss" for rebonding a small portion of the strip which had become debonded away from main base. (as it was an STC there are no Maintenance Manual procedures to rebond).
Leave them bare and WD 40 / sand and clean at least weekly on normal operations.