Corrosion protecting platenuts

Hi fellow builders,

I am preparing to attach the platenuts to the main wing spars that hold the fuel tanks and was wondering what others have done for corrosion protection.

I see that some builders use the platenuts without any protection and that others prime them.

The task of priming 210 platenuts doesn't appeal to me so I thought of electroplating them (Yellow passivate). This is very cheap in South Africa and I can have them done within a day.

Can I safely electroplate them or is there a specific reason why Van's supplies them unprotected?

Andre Burger
South Africa
RV-8 Wings

Specs....

Andre .. much discussion here...

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=12003&page=1&pp=10

The MIL-Spec ones are OK (cad plated) but non-one could get the spec. for the K1000 ones...

The Mil-Spec is here...

http://www.av8design.com/Hardware/MS21047.pdf

UPDATE...

The K1000 nutplates are cadmium plated - the dry film lubricant makes them look black - but they are cad. plated like the rest of our hardware... so if you are not priming AN bolts and nuts, the nutplates should be similar...

Here is the K1000 specification.... took a bit of googling...

http://www.clarendoneng.co.uk/pdfs/aerospace_nuts/k1000.pdf

gil in Tucson

I primed mine

Hi Andre,
I took all of my platenuts and layed them on a big towel in my paint booth and used a low pressure setting on my spayer (AKZO two part epoxy primer) and after about 15 minutes flipped them over and did the bottoms.
This whole process took me about 1 hour.
It was tedious, but I feel better about the extra coating.
Jim
7A and a couple of days ahead of you in progress

UPDATE...

The K1000 nutplates are cadmium plated - the dry film lubricant makes them look black - but they are cad. plated like the rest of our hardware... so if you are not priming AN bolts and nuts, the nutplates should be similar...

Here is the K1000 specification.... took a bit of googling...

http://www.clarendoneng.co.uk/pdfs/aerospace_nuts/k1000.pdf

gil in Tucson

Click to expand...

Hi Gil,

Thank you for your quick response and valuable information.
Never would have thought the platenuts are already Cadmium plated?.I?ll start riveting them on tonight

The support you guys give us make building an RV so much fun

Andre Burger
South Africa
RV-8 Wings