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Tank sealant madness

Alphalpha

Alphalpha

Well Known Member
Long day yesterday getting the tank bottom skins on and sealed. I still have a few more beads to run on the left tank but I went from 0700 to 0115 late last night. 1000 sealed rivets down another 800 to go. I'm very grateful for the power rivet puller.


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Wow! I like that tank design! Seal one half of the tank, flip it over and do the other half. Much easier access than my tanks. Pulled rivets too. Nice!
 
Nice job... all the proseal seems to be where it needs to be instead of "everywhere". :)

It would appear there might be a bit of unusable fuel in these tanks... or is there drainage around the hat section/rib intersection that is a little hard to see in the photos?
 
Same here…. We got both bottom skins riveted on last week. What a job. Even with three of us working, a solid five hour session for each skin. I will confess to obsessing over details. Used up the first quart of sealant and am on hold till another quart is delivered. There are passages at the ends of the hat sections that allow fuel to pass to the aft bay.

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catmandu said:
So happy we dismissed thoughts of a DeltaHawk, etc. and just bought our tanks built. But good for you!
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As I’ve mentioned….. building these tanks was among the dumbest decisions I’ve made. You choose wisely.
 
If anyone needs a quart kit of Flamemaster CS3204-B2, I have an unopened one that came with my wing kit. Expiration 09/26.

Message me...
 
aturner said:
Same here…. We got both bottom skins riveted on last week. What a job. Even with three of us working, a solid five hour session for each skin. I will confess to obsessing over details. Used up the first quart of sealant and am on hold till another quart is delivered. There are passages at the ends of the hat sections that allow fuel to pass to the aft bay.

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That's validating, I'm at one quart used as well. My only disappointment is I'm using a gram scale and keeping the mixing at 10:1 but I ran out of hardener with still 7 or more ounces of white goo left.

I did use the Semco gun one time but found it wastes a lot of material. Building the frame is really a bunch of small jobs over some days and you really only need A LOT of sealant during skins installation.
 
We also measured carefully and ran out of hardener with quite a bit of goo left.

Alphalpha said:
That's validating, I'm at one quart used as well. My only disappointment is I'm using a gram scale and keeping the mixing at 10:1 but I ran out of hardener with still 7 or more ounces of white goo left.

I did use the Semco gun one time but found it wastes a lot of material. Building the frame is really a bunch of small jobs over some days and you really only need A LOT of sealant during skins installation.
Click to expand...
 
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