Hi Ron !
This will likely make me unpopular, but .....
If you are hoping for ANY perceivable speed benefit from filling
rivets - forget it ! Having flown lots of Rebels, with and without
filled rivets, and paint - no noticeable difference. One had carefully
filled-over flush rivets on the leading edges - and was 2 - 3 mph slower
than one with regular rivets just painted ! There can easily be that much
variation between individual airplanes, so I wouldn't blame the rivets ...
but it WAS a lot of extra work for nothing.
While it might be aesthetically pleasing, filling the rivets
is a LOT of work, and just adds weight. If you spray paint well
with a HVLP rig, the paint should flow into the rivet heads & seal
well, if the prep is well done. Proper prep is the key to any paint
job !
Our second and third Rebels sat outside year 'round - after more
than 10 years, there were maybe 2 or 3 rivets, if you searched a while,
that showed a spot of rust on the mandrel. I blame the painting done
with an old high-pressure system - those rivets didn't get any paint
in them because the blast reflected back from the pockets in the rivet heads.
Southern Ontario winters and springs can be pretty wet too ... :-)
If you really want to, one of our builders used the EP-430 Epoxy
Primer in agricultural syringes to fill the heads - took a couple
of applications. He always kept a syringe handy for visitors to
the hangar - "Ain't every day a kid gets to whitewash a fence !" ;-)
--
......bobp
http://bpatterson.qhealthbeauty.com
http://apatterson2.qhealthzone.com
http://apatterson2.qbeautyzone.com
-------------------------------orig.-------------------------
On Saturday 05 August 2006 04:42 am, Ron Shannon wrote:
A local paint specialist recommended filling the rivets on the top
surfaces with something like Hysol (
http://tinyurl.com/sy4xs) before
painting them, to help preclude moisture collecting in the tops of the
pulled rivets. We are on the Pacific coast here, where salty fog and
other ocean moisture regularly moves inland off the water, but
obviously, filling thousands of rivets on the top surfaces would be a
lot of work.
Does anyone else have experience doing this? Pros and cons, thoughts and
opinions?
Ron
254R
http://n254mr.com
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