Eriselle
Member
Hello VAF, I hope you are having a nice day.
I have an RV-12 legacy and I'm currently working in the avionics bay. The avionics bay cover was questionably adhered to the relevant mating surfaces with something that I think is RTV, but I'm not 100% sure. As far as I can tell from the KIA, this isn't supposed to actually be adhered, but rather the RTV is supposed to form a gasket, and a releasing agent was supposed to have been used to allow the cover to be removed after the RTV gasket cures. It took two days of effort to remove the cover without damaging it to access the avionics bay. I did this with plastic razor blades, and a lot of sweat, a little blood, and maybe cursing the builder's name a bit, but I got it done. After removing the cover, I went to work scraping as much of the assumed-to-be RTV off the mating surfaces. At this point, there is still some residue on the mating surfaces that I need to remove. MEK failed to remove this, and I've been advised that I should try a depolymerizer that is designed to chemically break down silicone substances. I'll get to work on that, but using the MEK had an interesting side-effect that I now also need to deal with. Basically, the entire piece of aluminum, including under and around the residue is darkened by something, and either the elbow grease or the MEK is making it really fresh looking. I think I've removed some kind of protective coating, I don't think it's just dried oil, but I'm not confident. Maybe clear alodine? I'll attach a picture of what I'm talking about. At this point, I need to come up with a plan to return this to a healthy state. Assuming the depolymerizer works, I should end up with at least a surface clear of the residue, but then I also need to deal with the fact that I did something to surface.
Any relevant knowledge or experience with this would be very much appreciated, thank you!
I have an RV-12 legacy and I'm currently working in the avionics bay. The avionics bay cover was questionably adhered to the relevant mating surfaces with something that I think is RTV, but I'm not 100% sure. As far as I can tell from the KIA, this isn't supposed to actually be adhered, but rather the RTV is supposed to form a gasket, and a releasing agent was supposed to have been used to allow the cover to be removed after the RTV gasket cures. It took two days of effort to remove the cover without damaging it to access the avionics bay. I did this with plastic razor blades, and a lot of sweat, a little blood, and maybe cursing the builder's name a bit, but I got it done. After removing the cover, I went to work scraping as much of the assumed-to-be RTV off the mating surfaces. At this point, there is still some residue on the mating surfaces that I need to remove. MEK failed to remove this, and I've been advised that I should try a depolymerizer that is designed to chemically break down silicone substances. I'll get to work on that, but using the MEK had an interesting side-effect that I now also need to deal with. Basically, the entire piece of aluminum, including under and around the residue is darkened by something, and either the elbow grease or the MEK is making it really fresh looking. I think I've removed some kind of protective coating, I don't think it's just dried oil, but I'm not confident. Maybe clear alodine? I'll attach a picture of what I'm talking about. At this point, I need to come up with a plan to return this to a healthy state. Assuming the depolymerizer works, I should end up with at least a surface clear of the residue, but then I also need to deal with the fact that I did something to surface.
Any relevant knowledge or experience with this would be very much appreciated, thank you!
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