I need consistency

This is just a rant, so please forgive me. I don't know if you remember an issue I had recently where the main and nose ribs were sent to me bare and were all scratched up? Well, that's been resolved. But while speaking with Ken at Van's and as was posted by others here, it was brought to my attention the nose ribs come bare because they are heat treated and the plastic film would melt. Well, I had the misfortune of messing one up and ordered a new one. It came today and lo and behold...it was covered in blue plastic film! Now, does that mean it wasn't heat treated? And how crucial is this when it's only one rib. Another call to Van's on Monday. OK, I'm done.

P.S. Van's sent me all new main ribs perfect and covered in blue plastic film.

jlfernan said:

This is just a rant, so please forgive me. I don't know if you remember an issue I had recently where the main ribs were sent to me bare and were all scratched up? Well, that's been resolved. But while speaking with Ken at Van's and as was posted by others here, tit was brought to my attention the main ribs come bare because they are heat treated and the plastic would melt. Well, I had the misfortune of messing one up and ordered a new one. It came today and lo and behold...it was covered in blue plastic! Now, does that mean it wasn't heat treated? And how crucial is this when it's only one rib. Another call to Van's on Monday. OK, I'm done.

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If you read the other thread again you will see that I said that some RV wing ribs are heat treated but not all of them. I didn't mean some ribs, I meant some RV models... RV-12 main ribs are not heat treated. Parts that are not heat treated are usually (there are exceptions) produced, and shipped, with the vinyl on. Occasionally it may have been removed for some reason (stuck to the forming die during the hydro forming process, etc.).
The point is, just because you receive a part without vinyl doesn't mean it was heat treated.

At this point I guess you will just have to cut Ken some slack. Van's now sells nine different airplane models, with many more sub species within those models. It is impossible to know every single detail about every single one of them.

rvbuilder2002 said:

At this point I guess you will just have to cut Ken some slack. Van's now sells nine different airplane models, with many more sub species within those models. It is impossible to know every single detail about every single one of them.

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I understand what you're saying, but put yourself in my position. All of the nose ribs came bare, Ken tells you the nose ribs are heat treated, therefore not covered with film. You order a replacement rib and it comes covered, would you just build on or would you question the discrepancy? I'm just trying to figure out if I'm over-thinking things.

jlfernan said:

I'm just trying to figure out if I'm over-thinking things.

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Yes you are , but that is ok because you have no knowledge of the details.
The heat treating is for the forming process, not because of the final strength that is needed.

All RV ribs delivered to kit builders are 2024-T3 (whether they were heat treated or not). The T3 is the hardness rating.

Some ribs are formed in a T0 (soft condition) and then heat treated to T3 (It's actually done in the opposite order but for simplicity we will leave it at that).

Some parts (RV-12 ribs) were designed to be formed in the T3 (hard) condition so the ribs are punched from that material right from the start (they don't need to be heat treated to that hardness).

Heat treated vs non heat treated parts look slightly different.
A non heat treated part is very shinny just like all of your skins.
A heat treated part looks less shinny compared to one not heat treated. I would guess that all your ribs look exactly the same (regardless of whether they had vinyl on them or not). They should be shinny just like your skins because the RV-12 ribs don't require heat treating for the forming process.

Good info

Thanks for the clarification. I wondered why some parts were different from others. Personally, not loosing sleep over it since all my internal parts get scuffed with scotch brite and sprayed with Sherwin Williams primer. Everything ends up green!