Filler Repair

I have had to use a skim of filler on the front of the fuselage to get a good fit with the cowl. I only have about 10 hours on the aircraft and already some of this filler has cracked/fallen out, spoiling my nice new paint job. I have tried re-filling but it is not really working. I guess it is partly due to the flexing of the hinge when fitting the cowl plus sometimes having to use a little "persuasion".

What I really need is something that will adhere to the existing filler and aluminium like the proverbial sticking to a blanket and which will flex. Any ideas?

Paul,

Please provide a photo of the areas you are referencing. The techniques may be different depending on the specific location of the cowl.

I had to rebuild a significant portion of the front end of my cowl due to a mistake that was made in fitting the cowl. I've got quite a bit of micro balloons used as a cosmetic filler on my cowl. I've been flying for over two years with no issues with how it was applied.

If you search VAF, DanH has some excellent posts about several techniques for patching fiberglass. Although with a photo, more specific advice can be provided.

Bob

Yep...photos.

OK, I'll have to get back on that as I am just heading back to Hong Kong for work.

I did have an idea to reinforce the area with a couple of layers of light-weight fiberglass cloth and then blend it with some filler. The area that is cracking/breaking is right at the cowl interface where the filler has little support.

I am working on fitting my cowl, and even though everything fit perfectly when the hinges were cleco'd in place, for some reason the fit wasn't perfect after riveting and bonding the hinges in place. Long story short, the bottom right hinge was so off there was no way the pin was going in. My solution was to cut out the bottom rear cowling surrounding the hinge. Then I was able to fit that piece in place without the cowling, replace the cowl, and glass the two back together. It sounds like more work than it actually was and now the pin fits easily.

If you have a bad fit, you may want to consider something like this to re-fit the cowl to the fuselage rather than the other way around. You will have to repaint the cowl around the repair, though.

Chris

Good day
1) clean the crack, remove the grease (preferably SNO alcohol), then take to dissolve the resin with a filler until thick vaseline (filler into the resin preferably Aerosil), spread (apply), allow to dry (to polymerizates), cleaned, degreased, lightly spacenut finishing putty to smooth out and paint.
2) Aerosil - does not crack or kink and not getting enough sleep, it can be filled with up to 1.5 mm depth.
I hope something helped you.
Maxim.