Ed Wischmeyer
February 1st 04, 01:56 AM
To alodyne the two rudder skins and the vertical fin skin on the RV-10,
I used the bottom part of the tail kit shipping box as a "swimming
pool," lined with 4 mil plastic. The sheet I bought was 25' x 10', so
there was enough to line the box twice, fortuitously. I had on hand one
gallon each etch and alodyne.
The process worked pretty well. We had a plastic mug to pour liquid on
all parts on the skins. One problem was that the etch didn't seem to
necessarily get into all of the dimples, and they didn't alodyne well.
We also managed to slice the plastic with the aluminum, even though the
aluminum supposedly had had its edges smoothed. With two of us working,
it wasn't hard to use the plastic mug to scoop up the liquids when we
were done for reuse. (Alodyne is bad stuff to pour down the drain.)
It was a cloudy day, so we took a chance and did the alodyning outside,
especially after seeing how much etch dripped off the skins taking them
outside to wash down. (Alodyne is photoreactive to UV).
The final results were okay, not great but okay, and we got some ideas
for next time. The RV-10 aft fuselage skins are really big, and we'll
have plenty of chance to improve upon our technique. We'll have more of
each liquid, we'll use thicker plastic, and... and...
Now if only I'd remembered we had three spars to do as well. Gives me
something to do other than sit through the inane SuperBowl halftime show.
Ed Wischmeyer
I used the bottom part of the tail kit shipping box as a "swimming
pool," lined with 4 mil plastic. The sheet I bought was 25' x 10', so
there was enough to line the box twice, fortuitously. I had on hand one
gallon each etch and alodyne.
The process worked pretty well. We had a plastic mug to pour liquid on
all parts on the skins. One problem was that the etch didn't seem to
necessarily get into all of the dimples, and they didn't alodyne well.
We also managed to slice the plastic with the aluminum, even though the
aluminum supposedly had had its edges smoothed. With two of us working,
it wasn't hard to use the plastic mug to scoop up the liquids when we
were done for reuse. (Alodyne is bad stuff to pour down the drain.)
It was a cloudy day, so we took a chance and did the alodyning outside,
especially after seeing how much etch dripped off the skins taking them
outside to wash down. (Alodyne is photoreactive to UV).
The final results were okay, not great but okay, and we got some ideas
for next time. The RV-10 aft fuselage skins are really big, and we'll
have plenty of chance to improve upon our technique. We'll have more of
each liquid, we'll use thicker plastic, and... and...
Now if only I'd remembered we had three spars to do as well. Gives me
something to do other than sit through the inane SuperBowl halftime show.
Ed Wischmeyer