Dent in vertical stabilizer

[airtractor8]

Originally Posted by Dundee Downunder

Check out Sakkie VanHeerden at Serpentine (the guy with the RV-8A and twin jet Cri-Cri). He is an ace at paintless dent removal.
Cheers,
Rob

Hah?? What are you smokin? The OP is in Oregon,USA a very long way from Serpentine, Western Australia.

[Jskyking]

I know it?s a mental setback and your son is probably sick to his stomach. You might be able to remove a few rivets to get inside the vertical stab and slowly work the ding out with the bottom of a kitchen spoon in a circular fashion starting on the outboard edges of the ding and working towards the middle. It will be a slow process, but it works. There are other threads on this subject that addresses refining the ? spoon technique?. I?d sure give it a whirl before I ordered a new skin.....tomorrow will be a better day and it won?t look bad at all, 20,000 rivets from now....just my $.02.

[PHXflyer]

I've got a somewhat different issue, although it does involve a small dent in my rudder, and rather than start a new thread I though I would plumb the depths of the minds on this one. When I was putting my rudder halves together on my -14, the stiffeners on either rudder half are fastened together with those LP4-3 pop rivets. Well when I was pulling the squeezer for one of those rivets and it finally "popped", the rivet gun jerked back and down, hitting the sheet metal on the half that was laying flat on my work bench. It put a very small pimple like dent in the sheet metal. So, looking at the rudder from the outside, it literally looks like a pimple sticking out. No more than 1/16 or even 1/32 high. Before I rivet in the rudder assembly structure, which would seal off access to the inside of the rudder, is there any technique I can use to reduce this small dent, or even eliminate it? Or do I just chalk it up to garage-rash? Remember, it's a dent from the inside pushing out.

[iwannarv]

It happens (and will happen again). Kitchen spoon can work miracles, and paint guys can help. Build on!

[abwaldal@gmail.com]

At 8,000 feet and 180 kts with a grin so big you won't be able to see the dent
We all got em or we didn't build the bird. Enjoy the journey. Art

[Terry Lutz]

I put one of those stick-on bullet holes over the top of mine. Never know it was there!

[PHXflyer]

Originally Posted by iwannarv

It happens (and will happen again). Kitchen spoon can work miracles, and paint guys can help. Build on!

You rock! The kitchen spoon, especially one from my wife's finer collection of utensils, worked miracles. It got rid of the "pimple" and, although you can see where it was at (if you knew where to look), the final paint job will eliminate any evidence of it entirely. Thank you!!!

Now, I just have to deal with my wife...