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Filled rivet heads
Does anyone remember what Geico (Larry Geiger) used to fill the rivet heads on the Rv12 he built?
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I remember that he used a syringe. I do not remember what was in it.
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I did a google search for "syringe vansairforce geico" without quotes and found THIS thread. Larry mentioned Superfil.
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I've heard of using 3M's 2216 epoxy from a syringe.
Dave |
I used colored epoxy
I used a rather fine-gauge syringe with the plain old west system resin/hardener I used on the fiberglass. I found it difficult to see how much epoxy was going in the hole, so I used some colorant (comes in a tube from West) to give it some opacity. Since my rivet puller tended to leave a burr on the mandrel hole, I gently demurred the hole before filling with epoxy. If the epoxy is a little too high, it can then be easily sliced off with a blade after curing. (If there is a burr, it makes sliced the excess off a real pain). It sounds, and is, tedious, but I would guesstimate I did the exterior rivets on the entire plane in about eight hours, and I?m quite pleased with the results after painting.
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I ran into Larry a few weeks ago and that very subject came up. He used a syringe and needle from a farm supply store and injected micro into the rivet heads. Subject came up while he was looking at the local Aviation Nation RV-12 teen build that I?m helping with.
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I can verify that filling rivets will add .0001 knots to cruise speed 🤓
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Is appearance the only reason to fill the rivet heads? Is there a practical reason, like keeping water out of the wings and fuselage when it rains or preventing loose mandrels from falling out?
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Looks like the answer to the question nobody asked!😜
Definitely more work than I want to do. |
Quote:
It took about 40 hours to fill/sand all rivets, not that bad. |
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