Wing Dent

[bret]

Ok, so a friend of mine was solo bottom skin riveting the wing and during the act of bucking and reaching one of the back rivets the bucking bar slipped out of his finger tips, fell and dented the top skin out. He was wonder if there was a good way to repair this dent?............Ok ok it was me.

[aerhed]

That's why I do them upright in the wing cradle. But seriously, can you post a picture? It probably needs to be bumped inward & filled.

[bret]

Taking a pic was totally deceiving and depressing. It looked like it was protruding 1/4" so I got a straight edge and measured it. Interestingly I could only get a .010 feeler gage under one side...protruding .005 thousands?, how thick is filler primer? I think the reflectivity of the skin makes it look much worse. So do I risk making it worse or leave it?

[pierre smith]

So, who's gonna crawl under the airplane anyway? Put a bucking bar on the inside, lightly tap what you can and then forget about it

Best,

[Jamie]

Bret:

Are you going to paint your airplane or have it painted? If you can deal with it being there, just leave it. Your painter will turn the "outtie" into an "innie" and fill it. Once the metal is stretched there's no undoing it. Ask me how I know.

[douglassmt]

I recently had a friend over to my shop who makes his living fixing dents on cars - say, after hail storms. Says they typically can fix 1000 dents in a day. Anyway, I had a few dents here and there and wanted to see if he could fix them before I pushed them in and filled them. Interestingly, most dents on cars are "innies" while most dents (but not all) on my plane were "outies". Outies are easier. Nothing serious, but they would need to be dressed up one way or another before paint. Bottom line, unless the metal was creased, he worked out all the dents until you couldn't see them if you didn't know they were there. It's very impressive to watch him work, very light, gentle taps and pushes. You might look into a local dent fixer, they are every where and can usually tell you by looking at it whether they can do anything with it.

[akschu]

Originally Posted by Jamie

Once the metal is stretched there's no undoing it. Ask me how I know.

That is absolutely not true. You can shrink aluminum back up, that's how you build complex 3d shapes with aluminum. You can't always stretch, sometimes you need to shrink.

Anyway, for more information go checkout the master of sheet metal:

http://tinmantech.com/

schu

[bret]

I wonder if this would work.

http://tinmantech.com/html/hail_dent_repair_kit.php

[Flying Scotsman]

I want this:

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/mai...t_removal.html

[hendrik]

Also have a look at this post: http://www.vansairforce.com/communit...922#post471922