Guy Prevost

Guy Prevost

Well Known Member
The recent thread about paint blistering on fuel tank rivets made me wonder about something on my own tanks.

After each ProSeal session on my tanks, I cleaned the outside of the skin pretty thoroughly. I do however, have a small ring of sealant visible around every rivet head. Is this normal, or should I have worked harder to make sure I got every bit of visible sealant out of the dimples? It's too late now, but I still have to ask.

TIA,
Guy
 
Statements are easily made

cjensen said:
Normal. Proseal is easily painted and won't be the cause of any paint defects.
Click to expand...

That sounds good, tell it to all the people that have blisters on tank rivets only.
 
From what I've read, it's a handful of people this has happened to out of the thousands flying...sealant isn't the problem.
 
cjensen said:
From what I've read, it's a handful of people this has happened to out of the thousands flying...sealant isn't the problem.
Click to expand...

So far it's a "handful" of reported problems. As to the cause, nobody seems to know, but most evidence I've seen does point in some way to the sealant.
 
Read what Rick said about military and airline aircraft manufacturers using sealant for fuel tanks and pressure vessels in the other thread about this (for bolts, rivets, screws, etc.). If sealant was the problem, it would be more widespread and common than it is. I'm not trying to argue by any means here...we paint over sealant all the time when repairing leaky fuel panels and I've never seen a problem. I just can't see cured sealant being THE root cause of paint bubbles. It has to be in the paint prep process...
 
Blisters

cjensen said:
From what I've read, it's a handful of people this has happened to out of the thousands flying...sealant isn't the problem.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying sealant is the cause, only that the tank sealer is the only common in this mystery.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.