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Mud Daubers & $18000

donaziza

Well Known Member
About 5 days ago, there were a lot of threads on Mud Daubers. I read them all. Yesterday, a fellow RV 8ter and I were talking about these critters while at the airport. He related the story of an RV er going out to start his engine, and it cost him $18000. Seems the little varmints had crawled up the entire length of his exhaust pipe all the way into the cylinder, and then built their nest.:mad: The nest of course is sand, dirt, thus the reason for all the damage.:mad:

One of the guys, 5 days ago, talked about "pipe cleaners" Turns out Walmart has it in all different colors. I thought bright orange was great. So I know my airplane is going to look funny, but I've now got two nerf balls stuffed up my exhaust pipes, bright orange pipe cleaner threaded thru them with the two ends sticking in the fuel tank vents, and also bright orange pipe cleaner in the two static ports. (The pitot tube and ram air intake were already covered----found a bird and his nest in the ram air a few years back)

Y'all can laugh, but it makes me feel better.;)
 
I helped restore an old warbird that had been stored outside in the South for many many years. We found those nests everywhere. I hate those things. ;)
 
I don't know about other areas, but in southwest Indiana, the mud daubers will pick up a ball of clay the size of a small pea and fly off with it. It doesn't take very long for them to build an entire nest, so even flying every hour isn't enough to stop them.

Those little buggers can move a lot of dirt in very short order!

(Note: for those who are puzzled, we don't have "dirt". We have "clay". It's awful stuff, but it did allow our local ancestors ready access to making bricks.)
 
I have these guys all over this time of year. When building my spinner I wondered if anyone closed in the rear bulkhead to keep these critters out of the spinner cavity.

Also, do we need to cover the spinner/cowling gap during downtimes like Osh?
 
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