1001001
Well Known Member
I have dug around various references and haven't found a solid answer to this question. I plan to call Van's tech support about this, but builder support isn't open until later. Maybe someone will see this and have an answer.
For various reasons I'm just getting around to preparing the wing lower skins, and found that an animal (probably a squirrel) got into the crate that had the wing skins in it. At the inboard edge of one of the big skins, there is some corrosion due to the animal relieving itself, and the liquid getting under the blue protective film. There are small areas of pitting corrosion around this end of the skin. I partially cleaned these up by gently wet sanding and measured the depth of the pits using a dial depth gauge. They are a lot shallower than they look, but still a few thousandths deep.
AC 43.13-1B says what to do about pitting corrosion, but leaves the thickness margins to the manufacturer's judgment, and doesn't mention an acceptable loss of thickness. Anyone know how deep (in terms of % total thickness) is acceptable for a corrosion repair on sheet alclad aluminum? I'd really hate to have to buy and have shipped a new skin (this is one of the largest skins in the entire kit), but will if I have to. Also, anyone know if Van's can roll the skins up and pack them in a smaller box to avoid huge shipping charges for oversize packages?
For various reasons I'm just getting around to preparing the wing lower skins, and found that an animal (probably a squirrel) got into the crate that had the wing skins in it. At the inboard edge of one of the big skins, there is some corrosion due to the animal relieving itself, and the liquid getting under the blue protective film. There are small areas of pitting corrosion around this end of the skin. I partially cleaned these up by gently wet sanding and measured the depth of the pits using a dial depth gauge. They are a lot shallower than they look, but still a few thousandths deep.
AC 43.13-1B says what to do about pitting corrosion, but leaves the thickness margins to the manufacturer's judgment, and doesn't mention an acceptable loss of thickness. Anyone know how deep (in terms of % total thickness) is acceptable for a corrosion repair on sheet alclad aluminum? I'd really hate to have to buy and have shipped a new skin (this is one of the largest skins in the entire kit), but will if I have to. Also, anyone know if Van's can roll the skins up and pack them in a smaller box to avoid huge shipping charges for oversize packages?