Kapton VS Aquanet Xtra

My experience has been that the Kapton tape does not work any better than bare glass, maybe slightly better. I much prefer a simple Elmer's glue stick, even over the hairspray. I like being able to control the application area, and I believe it works better.

I cringe whenever I hear of people who are still printing on kapton tape.  Honestly, I found it to be so frustating that I would probably find something else to do with my time if it was the only print surface available.  IMO, there is not ever a reason to print on kapton when glass is readily available everywhere and very cheap.  Why be constantly replacing tape and worrying about getting it down with any wrinkles?  I have found all plastics stick easily to glass and glue stick.  Plus you can pry off the print (if it does not self release when cooled) without damaging the kapton. 

IMO- do yourself the biggest, easiest favor of your 3D printing career and start printing on glass.

I will be experimenting with PEI soon but if it can be damaged with a paint scraper I will probably go right back to glass.

Rave X mega? What do you like about it over Aquanet?

I'm still on my first bottle of Aquanet, a year and a half later, It's still about 1/4" full. 

As for controlling the application area, this is what I did, and it works great:

http://www.soliforum.com/post/35559/#p35559

Just an observation here.....
I think you may be using too much hairspray, of course what do I know about it

And it makes your room smell pretty too

Using hairspray (aquanet extra super hold) completely changed my printing experience for the better.  I have a PEI plate still in the red bubblewrap from RRD (a bit overpriced but I was ignorantly impatient at the time) that I've still not tried because I haven't printed anything yet that the hairspray genuinely couldn't handle.  Never really had any luck with the kapton but just left it on the bed under the 8x8" glass plates that I use now.  Oh Yeah - the glass is nearly hot swappable too.

Thanks for the replies everyone, I think we pretty much covered it all. Looking forward to getting some PEI soon.

I use a sheet of polycarbonate. It's . 22" thick. Screwed it down at 4 corners with small countersunk screws. Takes a while to heat up, but abs sticks to it without hairspray or glue.