On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 16:53:15 GMT, "Steve Thomas"
wrote:

When you guys weld up your 4130 airframes do you use any type of rust
inhibitor in the tubes? I have read about some that you spray in the tubes
ait crawls up the walls to coat the whole inside, and it is supppose to leak
out of any weldment that had a pinhole in it. I am just curious if you use
anything like this or not. Thanks!

--
Have a good one!

Steve
www.americanspiritppc.com

Once again, I'm breaking from tradition regarding this building
method. What method do I use? Absolutely nothing.

Here's the way I figure it. I'm 55 now. I've welded this fuselage
together to the best of my ability and have closed off all openings.
Is it air tight? Proably not, there my be a pinhole somewhere. But
the fuselage will be sandblasted, at which time I get to inspect it
one more time, than it will be coated with primer and then coated with
paint. By the time all this is done, there will be precious few
places for water to get into, and that's without the fabric covering.

With the fabric covering, almost no water will be able to reach the
tubes. And even if it could, there would be very very few places for
it to get inside the tube. Did I mention that the fuselage sits level
rather than tail down? Well that's a factor too.

Finally, even if I somehow left a gaping hole for moisture to enter
the tubing, which isn't the case but for argument's sake let's assume
so, it still won't matter much in my lifetime.

So I decided not to painstakingly drill a hole through every joint so
that linseed oil or whatever could be poured into it and then roll the
fuselage around to slosh each tube, then drain it out, sort of. I
mean sheesh, what a mess to deal with and how much added weight would
this be? All for no good reason that I could see. The entire
fuselage doesn't rust out from the inside, never has. Only a few
tubes that were improperly welded and were tail down ever rusted much
and then it took 30 or 40 years to do so.

Corky Scott