Mike and Sarah Build an RV-10: Fuel Tanks

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Fuel Tanks - Proseal bottle #2

Well, we're through one more 3.5oz bottle of proseal, which got us through the rest of the stiffeners on the L tank, 5 ribs on the R tank, the inboard nose rib of the L tank, and the L sump drain flange. The 3.5oz bottles seem to be working perfectly-- by the time we hit the end of the bottle it's just starting to become less goopy (technical term) and we can go back and clean up after ourselves before it's really set. We're finding acetone works great to clean up bead lines and erase smudges while it's still pliable. If it's sat a few days and hardened a bit, MEK is the next best alternative, but man that stuff smells hardcore. Lesson here is clean it up as early as possible to avoid needing to use the "heavy stuff".

By the time we got through the first couple ribs on the R tank, we had a system down that was working pretty well. I'd wash the inside of the skin and rib flange with acetone, run a thin bead of proseal on the rib flange and hand it off to Sarah, and then run a medium-size bead of proseal on the inside of the skin. Sarah would "butter" the rib flange with an icing scribe while I would butter the inside of the skin with a popsicle stick. We'd insert the rib and install a few clecos on each side to hold it in place. Then, we'd start on one side (either top or bottom) and install rivets from aft working forwards. Sarah would place rivets, clean the rivet gun and/or anything else needing an acetone wipe, as well as being on cleco duty. Meanwhile, I would only have one gloved hand and be working the rivet gun and bucking bar. In this way, we could get through a rib fairly quickly and move on to the next one, working outboard from the innermost rib.