Scott Hersha
Well Known Member
Well, today I got my first taste of dealing with pro-seal (Flame Master actually) on my RV14 fuel tanks. My first 2 airplanes had QB wings, so I've never actually built fuel tanks and I've never used pro-seal until today....... What a mess! It took me almost 4 hours to attach 3 items to each of the the inboard wing ribs. There were supposed to be 4 things, but the large 3/16" rivets used to plug tooling holes proved to be more of a challenge than I could deal with while the sealer was ready to go. I got two rivets in one of the ribs, but practically destroyed it in the process. I whaled on the rivets with a large hammer using my C frame as called out in the plans, and it barely squashed it at all. I bought some 3/16" Al pulled rivets at a hardware store and will seal them in place tomorrow.
The problem I'm going to have with the wing ribs is getting them clecoed in place. It took me 3 hours to dry clecoe the ribs in place to see if they would fit. I wouldn't have been able to do it without a rubber mallet. I've read the posts from Rick Gallati and others about Fay-sealing the ribs in place and would like to do that. However, when I look at the process with online pictures, it looks like Rick clecoed the ribs to the upper skin and then just rolled the skin around to clecoe the lower skin to rib holes. That would be impossible with my kit. When I tried that, the bottom skin holes missed by almost a full hole. There was no way to make the bottom set of holes line up - I tried for 2 hours. The only way I could put this thing together was to use the cradle, installing the ribs from above and putting considerable pressure in the ribs to get it down into the leading edge. I had to use clecoes to sort of 'wedge' it down into position. Sort of reminded me of some medieval torture chamber. If any of you have a method of doing this that is a little less 'abusive', please let me know. My plan of wet clecoeing all ribs in place in one day is looking unlikely at this point. If I have to struggle so much to get the rib in position for clecoeing, I'm afraid I'll wipe off the pro seal in the process.... help please........
The problem I'm going to have with the wing ribs is getting them clecoed in place. It took me 3 hours to dry clecoe the ribs in place to see if they would fit. I wouldn't have been able to do it without a rubber mallet. I've read the posts from Rick Gallati and others about Fay-sealing the ribs in place and would like to do that. However, when I look at the process with online pictures, it looks like Rick clecoed the ribs to the upper skin and then just rolled the skin around to clecoe the lower skin to rib holes. That would be impossible with my kit. When I tried that, the bottom skin holes missed by almost a full hole. There was no way to make the bottom set of holes line up - I tried for 2 hours. The only way I could put this thing together was to use the cradle, installing the ribs from above and putting considerable pressure in the ribs to get it down into the leading edge. I had to use clecoes to sort of 'wedge' it down into position. Sort of reminded me of some medieval torture chamber. If any of you have a method of doing this that is a little less 'abusive', please let me know. My plan of wet clecoeing all ribs in place in one day is looking unlikely at this point. If I have to struggle so much to get the rib in position for clecoeing, I'm afraid I'll wipe off the pro seal in the process.... help please........