Questions on my wings and plywood

4 posts in this topic

Posted

I have been wondering on whether or not to replace the ribs and I wanted the communities opinion. the wing tanks that are having flakes of something coming off; what what to do about it?

 Photos.zip

Photos.zip

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Posted

I'm having a hard time seeing for sure what is what on the ribs.  Are they graying from exposure to weather?  If it was more the false ribs that were poor, it's fairly easy to make up a bunch of new ones of them with a router table, and some 1/8" thick aircraft plywood.  Looks like some one did a poor job on the fiberglass, can you peal off everything that's loose, and then maybe sand off the rest of the junk with a belt sander with out going through the original tank, and then redo the fiberglass?  JImChuk

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Posted (edited)

I'll try to get some pictures of my project up tomorrow, but I just finished removing the ribs from my wings and pulling fiberglass off the tanks that the builder applied. In my case, the builder did not sand the tanks and the top fiberglass pulled up easily but the fiberglass was adhered very well to the spars and bottoms of the tanks.

Pulling the ribs off is fairly easy but plan on them not being usable and making a whole new set. The Hysol epoxy softens with a heat gun and I used a sharp chisel to remove the epoxy while being careful not to damage the spars.

I am not able to see your photos right now but if you're worried about the insides of your tanks, there is a website where someone cut and removed the tops of the tanks and coated the insides with epoxy. They then re-fiberglassed the tank tops back on. I'll see if I can find a link to that site.

 

Here is the link to that site:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nvav.nl/images/stories/kitfoxresealingtanks.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjnt4OKsYjhAhVr04MKHVReCGMQFjAAegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw3pFOfH7IRFtn2CVNmzT0Y7

 

Edited by cr125r847
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Posted

I'll try to get some pictures of my project up tomorrow, but I just finished removing the ribs from my wings and pulling fiberglass off the tanks that the builder applied. In my case, the builder did not sand the tanks and the top fiberglass pulled up easily but the fiberglass was adhered very well to the spars and bottoms of the tanks.

Pulling the ribs off is fairly easy but plan on them not being usable and making a whole new set. The Hysol epoxy softens with a heat gun and I used a sharp chisel to remove the epoxy while being careful not to damage the spars.

I am not able to see your photos right now but if you're worried about the insides of your tanks, there is a website where someone cut and removed the tops of the tanks and coated the insides with epoxy. They then re-fiberglassed the tank tops back on. I'll see if I can find a link to that site.

 

Here is the link to that site:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nvav.nl/images/stories/kitfoxresealingtanks.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjnt4OKsYjhAhVr04MKHVReCGMQFjAAegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw3pFOfH7IRFtn2CVNmzT0Y7

 

Very Well done. Thanks..

 

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