Hey EarthlyPotLuck...Been thinking...Might use some corruplast sign material to zip tie to the bottom of the 8" Tornado for hunting the woods so it won't grab onto branches and such and will slide more easy over the forest floor. Going to try it in the woods first to judge how bad it is at that before deciding. Didn't make it out today as I had hoped for a few hours to try it out. Too many odds and ends around the house I had to take care of. Shooting for tomorrow I hope to give it it's first spin.
That corruplast (sp?) material is the stuff some signs are made from that you see stuck (usually illegally) onto telephone poles and such. It looks like cardboard with the slight hints of "ribbing" on the surface, and when you look at the side of it you see air chambers just like cardboard. It's a very strong plastic material that you could never hope to rip with your bare hands. I've used it to make goose silhouette decoys for field waterfowl hunting.
Works great. I just stack them all on top of each other and then run a rope through a hole through all of them at the top of the body. Compact and not too heavy. Much easier when tromping through muddy crop fields than carrying a bunch of full body decoys. Throw it over my shoulder and off I go.
When I was making them I made various spray paint templates to quickly spray the black, grey, and white colors onto them so I was able to make two dozen in about an hour or so real quick. Very durable. I found a local banner supply store who sells sheets in 4x8 foot sizes for like $12, so two of those and I was in business. They even had those yard sign metal wire stands you stick in the ground so I picked those up for their "feet" to use in the field.
You can often find the stuff thrown out in dumpsters behind gas stations that use big sheets of the stuff for Pepsi signs and such. The sign shop/banner supply stores even have this stuff in different colors like black or grey, so I'd probably pick up a small sheet of it for doing a few coils from them so it'll look better. Painting it the desired color won't hold up to the durability factor for sliding a coil around on the ground I don't think, due to the slick surface of the material.
Either way, back to coils- I plan to melt the holes in the stuff for the zip ties since that will prevent ripping, although this stuff is very hard to tear even with a cut started on it, but just the same by melting the holes less chance of that. I figure I can zip tie a sheet to the bottom of the coil and then just cut off the zips when I don't need to use it on another hunt. The stuff is rather slick/smooth too so that should help with sliding over things.
I might even try this stuff on my 12x10 for woods hunting, although I've found this coil doesn't snag on branches as easily as the 10" Tornado. Only thing I can figure is that the gaps between the "spokes" on these SEF coils are less big than a round coil, so easier to bump and ride over the forest floor without snagging on things. Just the same I think using the corruplast will help matters even more.
PS- A friend and I use this stuff to make horizontal stabilizers or vertical fins for our RC electric planes sometimes. Heavier than EPS foam but when we want extreme durability in a design we'll use that stuff without the extra needed strength mods to keep foam from blowing apart in a crash.
Again, can't wait to read your field reports on the S-5 compared to the 8" Tornado and the Coinsearch coil. You better down play the S-5 though or I might be sorry I sold mine...
