"Ed Haywood" wrote in message om...
The belly fabric on my Decathlon is in terrible shape. It is oil soaked to
the point where the paint and tapes are flaking off. Something has to be
done. Doubtful we can reskin just the belly, so we are considering a
recover of the entire fuselage.

Is it possible to recover a fuselage without disassembling the aircraft
completely? We just had a brand new engine and prop installed, and would
like to avoid yanking the engine off. Would like to leave the interior and
panel alone, too, mainly to save money and time.


Ed: You are going to have to strip out some of the interior to do the
fabric work no matter what. If I remember correctly, you will also
have to pull the gear to minimize the number of seams in the forward
fuselage area. Also, isn't there a metal boot cowling? It will have to
come off too...

Just for a data point we can strip a Stinson L-5, which is about the
same size and complexity down to the bare tubing in a little over 15
manhours. It then takes about 20 hours to do the basic covering and
stich the fin. Getting through the paint takes at least another 30
manhours, depending on the scheme complexity. Add another 20-30 hours
to put it all back together and check everthing out.

Cleaning and preping the fuselage for fabric is going to take you
quite a while if you don't strip it completely because the old glue
and fabric are going to have to be buffed off where they don't simply
pull off. then you will have to hand wipe each tube numerous times
to be sure that all traces of oil are off them or the glue will not
stick.

Clearly, you have to make a decision as to how much grunt labor you
want to put in doing this vs just taking it completely down and having
the tubing blasted and painted. BTW...a good blast and paint job will
take less than 10 manhours to do and about 2-3 calendar days.

We've done them both ways for customers in our shop and I can tell you
that the minimalist way usually ends up biting the customer in the
butt within a year or two when something else shows up and requires
opening the fuselage back up to take care of it.

Food for though.....

Craig C.