Van's Air Force

The definitive Van's Aircraft support community! Buying, building or flying an RV? Join our exclusive family of mentors and enthusiasts!

Does the spinner get the section 05-18 epoxy/flox treatment?

BobN54

Member
47iS/U-06 Step 1. states "Refer to Section 5.18 for information on match-drilling opaque fiberglass parts." Section 05-18 includes steps 17-25 that call for applying an epoxy/flox mixture to the "bracket" to close any small gaps between it and the fiberglass. Does this procedure apply in the case of the spinner? "Bracket" would have to mean the forward spinner bulkhead in this context. I'm asking because I have not found an RV-12 builders log or forum thread that shows that being done. However, an RV-6 builder friend says he did it when building his airplane. Hence my uncertainty. I'd appreciate any hints for doing this, if it's necessary.
 
On my 7A, rhe manual was pretty specific about getting the spinner components adjusted so the forward bulkhead was flush. Aft bulkhead ended up flush too. It was done by adding washer(s) to the aft bulkhead screws till the spinner was positioned fire/aft perfectly with the forward bulkhead flush inside. No epoxy/flox required.
 
The instructions for the 12 just indicated to match drill the spinner, not apply flox between the bulkhead and the spinner.

The apparent purpose of the flox would be to conform the shape of the fairing to the bracket. in this case the bulkhead is already shaped to fit in the spinner so that is not required. I would also worry about misaligning the spinner, if you build up more flox on one side vs the other. This is a rapidly spinning part after all.

I suspect the process is provided in section 5 for use in places like wheel pants - where you woukd have flat brackets atteched to the inside of rounded fairings. There you would need the flox to keep the fairings from flexing and cracking when you tighten the screws.

Anyow I didn't do it. - the prop needed no weight for balancing and no evidence of cracks or distortion where the spinner is screwed to the bulheads after 50 hours.
 
Thanks for the insight everyone. This could be clarified in the plans by a trivial edit to 47iS/U-06 Step 1: "Refer to Section 5.18 steps 1-16 for information on match-drilling opaque fiberglass parts."
 
Back
Top