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Repair

whittfic

whittfic

Well Known Member
Patron
So there I was applying some colour to various bits and pieces at last. I had this painting thing nailed, the prep was done and the paint was going on nicely, no runs, no orange peel, nice coverage without being too heavy. Life was good... and then this happened!!

http://s456.photobucket.com/user/whittfic/media/image.jpeg.html

This is the inboard rear corner of one of my elevators. I was in the process of suspending it from a hook in the roof of the spray booth when the support wire slipped from my hand and it hit the floor!! Needless to say I was less than happy and all I wanted to do at that moment was start flinging tools around the workshop. After I stopped calling myself all the idiot names I could think of I actually decided to clean up and call it a day.

So now I am asking the collective wisdom here for any suggestions/guidence to fix this. I'm thinking I should be able to carefully manipulate this back into shape fairly easily but if anyone knows of any potential 'gotchas' I am all ears.

Clive Whittfield
Auckland
New Zealand
RV6 (painting)
 
Sorry for your misfortune. Reminds me of the time I caught a part in the deburring wheel and it ended up becoming a missle and making a dent in my brand new leading edge.

In my humble opinion you will never be able to make a satisfactory repair without reskinning it. The metal is deformed and kinked. Bite the bullet and order a new skin. Trying to repair that corner will cost you a lot of time and you will never be completely happy with the result.
 
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And if you did repair it you would never be able to enjoy a nice flight without thinking about that critical flight control surface with 200 MPH winds acting on it..........
 
Sorry for your loss! It will make you stronger.
I would lay it on a flat smooth board, heat it a little with an electric heat gun, and then lay a 8' piece if 2"X4" on it and through a series of clamping, tapping, and heating try to get it to straighten. - It is worth a shot. If it does not work you re-skin. If it does work you will be happy you tried and you will learn a lot about metal working in the process.
 
I would try to straighten it. Not much load on trailing edge. Use an internal wood mandrel and try to tap it out. I think it's worth a try.
 
I would stop drill the sharp trailing edge where the damaged corner ends, then massage the bent skins back in position. If you happy with the results, a little JB Weld in the hole, skim the wrinkles with some light weight body filler, final sand and repaint. You have nothing to loose trying to fix it.
 
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pa38112 said:
Sorry for your loss!....heat it a little with an electric heat gun....
Click to expand...

Assuming that's aluminum, all the heat will do is make it permanently weaker, and you'd need much more than a typical heat gun can provide anyway. By the time heat will soften the aluminum enough to work it better, the paint will have been ruined and the aluminum will need to be re-heat-treated.

Find a good auto-body shop and ask the manager to have his best bump-out guy see what he can do. You might be surprised.

Dave
 
What a frustrating thing to happen! Take it from BigJohn, unless you're an absolute wizard at sheet metal you'll never get close to a satisfactory result trying to straighten that. The end rib would have to come out just to get in there to make a start, and the skin will probably want to crack at the kink and at the trailing edge bend.
Take a deep breath and order the new skin, or perhaps check the classifieds for a built one?
Good luck,
John.
 
New elevator skin is, what, about $75. Stiffeners can't be very expensive.

I can't tell you what to do. But I'd drill it off the spar and put on a new skin so I wouldn't have to look at it every time I did a preflight.

but that's just me and I'm pretty OCD
 
Ding

Clive

That ding is going to bug you on every pre flight walk around.

I did the same thing once and my better half said re-skin it.

You already have the frame and hole pattern so shouldn't be too hard to do.

Carr
 
I did the same thing 4 yrs ago when repainting, only I did it better as the other elevator was laying under the elevator that fell off the rack and both elevators had to be reskinned!
 
Well bummer. I am a very experienced sheet metal worker and would try to fix it, just so I can say I tried. However, 2024t3 isn't very workable. You get one or two shots at fixing a crease, bend, or sharp edge before it cracks. Access will be limited making this job even tougher. If you can fix this to a satisfactory "like new" condition (no filler), my hat is off to you. If you can do that in less time than re-skinning the entire thing, you're very good!
I have seen similar damage repaired, properly, with a patch. The overlapping seam really isn't that noticeable, but with access issues, and getting the bends right, you are probably in the same ball park time wise as re-skinning.
 
I confess: I made the same mistake

I made exactly the same mistake as I was about to paint my elevator. I considered re-skinning, but I felt that the damage caused by me removing all those rivets was a greater risk than a fiberglass repair. I cut off the bent aluminum, fitted a foam plug, and glassed over the top. After painting, the repair is invisible except when viewed from the end. I haven't thought about it since. That is, until I saw your post.

http://roughandreadyaerospace.blogspot.com/2015/06/step-130-time-out-for-disaster.html
 
joe_rainbolt said:
I made exactly the same mistake as I was about to paint my elevator. I considered re-skinning, but I felt that the damage caused by me removing all those rivets was a greater risk than a fiberglass repair. I cut off the bent aluminum, fitted a foam plug, and glassed over the top. After painting, the repair is invisible except when viewed from the end. I haven't thought about it since. That is, until I saw your post.

http://roughandreadyaerospace.blogspot.com/2015/06/step-130-time-out-for-disaster.html
Click to expand...

thats impressive, and great work
 
joe_rainbolt said:
I made exactly the same mistake as I was about to paint my elevator. I considered re-skinning, but I felt that the damage caused by me removing all those rivets was a greater risk than a fiberglass repair. I cut off the bent aluminum, fitted a foam plug, and glassed over the top. After painting, the repair is invisible except when viewed from the end. I haven't thought about it since. That is, until I saw your post.

http://roughandreadyaerospace.blogspot.com/2015/06/step-130-time-out-for-disaster.html
Click to expand...

I concur with Neal, fantastic thinking and great work!
 
joe_rainbolt said:
I made exactly the same mistake as I was about to paint my elevator. I considered re-skinning, but I felt that the damage caused by me removing all those rivets was a greater risk than a fiberglass repair. I cut off the bent aluminum, fitted a foam plug, and glassed over the top. After painting, the repair is invisible except when viewed from the end. I haven't thought about it since. That is, until I saw your post.

Well Joe, your blog pretty much describes my reactions to a 'T', and for what it's worth I attempted to straighten the damage in the same way you did, with almost exactly the same result. I have thought about re-skinning as suggested and that may well be the way I end up going, but shipping replacement parts out to this corner of the world can be very costly to say the least.

I have decided to attempt a repair not unlike what you have done but by forming a small piece of aluminium to fit under the skin and riveting/bonding in place between the skin and the end rib. Looks pretty good dry fitting so far and I am hoping that once the filling and fairing has been completed it will not be noticeable under the paint. We shall see...

Clive
Click to expand...
 
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Repaired!

So here it is. I decided to attempt a repair and it didn't come out too bad, acceptable if not perfect...







I cut of the damaged area and found a scrap piece of aluminium to fabricate a patch. After applying alodine I riveted and bonded the patch into position using epoxy adhesive. Filled and faired using epoxy adhesive thickened with aluminium powder and then primed and painted. Whole process took about three hours plus curing time for the glue and paint.

As I said, not perfect but I'm happy with the result.

Clive Whittfield
Auckland, New Zealand
 
That looks awesome! I would never notice it unless looking in from the side. Nice work!
 
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