Cost to Metalize

6896 · Post by **6896** » Wed Nov 21, 2018 9:53 pm

Some photos of the fuel cell bay cover

6896 · Post by **6896** » Wed Nov 21, 2018 9:54 pm

Fuel cell bay drain doubler inside view and leading edge landing light, which is another Skycraft STC

8362 · Post by **8362** » Sat Dec 01, 2018 7:44 am

Nice work.

Can I ask why you chose metal over fabric?
That plane is going to way too nice not to hanger!

Matt

6896 · Post by **6896** » Sat Dec 01, 2018 11:55 pm

My C140 project came with a metallized wing, so I restored it to the same configuration, but with new aluminum. The original metal skins had defects and some of the nose ribs were cracked, so we doubled them up to take care of all of the underlying issues that were not visible until we removed the skins. I stayed with metal skins for durability and weathering, albeit at the expense of increased weight.

8362 · Post by **8362** » Sun Dec 02, 2018 6:14 am

Thank for the information. Good luck with your plane.
Matt

6896 · Post by **6896** » Mon Dec 03, 2018 9:37 am

Thanks Matt

4945 · Post by **4945** » Mon Sep 02, 2019 11:41 am

6896 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 21, 2018 8:19 pm I have hundreds of photos along the way showing the step by step process. Applying the skins is tricky in that you have to roll the skin spanwise and rivet a little at a time to not get boxed out where you can't use a bucking bar. We did well in this regard and had to use very few NAS1398AD4 or Cherrymax rivets. Most of the rivets are AN470AD3 type, but you may need a collection of oversized rivets too if your project is like mine with sloppy holes that were redrilled. I spent a fair amount of time sourcing oversized rivets in both the Cherrymax and solid varieties. You'll also need to grind some custom bucking bars to rivet the skins to the spars to work around the bulbed angles. My father and I became pretty good at riveting since there were so many rivets to form.

It's a great experience to do this, but be patient and careful if you attempt it and hopefully you have a good helper.

Tony

Hi Tony,

How did you rivet the wingtips? I have a 120 with metalized wings by Met-Co-Air with a hole corroded in the bottom of the starboard wingtip. I need to remove it to repair it. Drilling out the rivets is easy. I don't want to take it off until I have a plan to put it back on without using dozens of CherryMax rivets.

Gary

6896 · Post by **6896** » Tue Sep 24, 2019 6:23 pm

In lieu of blind riveting, I used #4-40 stainless steel truss head machine screws with nut plates onto an aluminum strip, which is in turn flush riveted to the inside of the wing tip. I had to partition up the nut plate strips to accommodate the tapered trailing edge. As you know, unlike later Cessnas, our wingtips fit inside the wing skins for the metal wing STC. Later Cessnas used screws for their wingtips.

The #4-40 truss head is not noticeably larger than a AN470AD-3 or AN470AD-4 rivet head from a short distance.

I also used #10-32 nut plates instead of nuts for the four standard #10-32 truss head screws that originally held the tip to the wing for fabric covering.

My approach is a bit heavier of course, but a removable tip allows access to wiring, etc. if needed.

See photos.