caulking before the skins are riveted?

Has anyone considered or actually applied a very thin film of caulking between the overlap of the skins of the wings? My thinking is if the paint cracked at the joint, rain could seep between the skin overlap.

Some people have used pro-seal for this.

My worthless opinion is that this would be a total waste of time and would add unnecessary weight.

RV's are not water proof by any stretch of the imagination.....

Besides everything is lapped to the weather. ie. water would have to run up hill to get under the outboard skin.

primer

Primer these surfaces To prevent corrossion.

Cm

I know of a guy who was building a -7 with rivets and polysulfide. I believe his rationale was that it would provide improved corrosion resistance at the lap seams. He worked for a biz jet manufacturer that used the same process (as I recall to make the fuselage air tight for pressurization) so he was prepared for the task. I also saw a BD-4 under construction that used polysulfide and pulled rivets. I don't know much about that aircraft, but was told by the builder that sealant and pulled rivets were done in accordance with the plans. That being said, it adds weight, cost, and time to the (RV) airframe.

Some years ago, I used polysulfide and rivets to attach the stiffeners to the skin of the (2nd) rudder I built for my -4.

We all get to make decisions on our own. I built my Rocket using 3M 2216 structural adhesive and rivets; riveting being done wet. This does improve strength (simple engineering) and my thinking is that it will also slightly improve the noise level. It greatly increased the workload of the build.

larryj said:

We all get to make decisions on our own. I built my Rocket using 3M 2216 structural adhesive and rivets; riveting being done wet. This does improve strength (simple engineering) and my thinking is that it will also slightly improve the noise level. It greatly increased the workload of the build.

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How easy would it be to replace a skin in the event of damage? A friend of mine just had to replace a top outboard wing skin due to a bird strike in his RV-7.