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Right Side under wing from drumming . One spot about the size of a dime showing gray cloth
all from prop wash . Believe it’s Polycoat . Could be butyrate. what’s the steps to repair ? Can I use rejuvenator ?
It might be ranthane or aerothane topcoat. A little MEK on a rag and rub it on inconspicuous spot. If the color rubs off it’s butyrate or polytone. Logbook should state.
The only way I got mine to quote cracking was to replace that chunk of fabric under wing tanks.
I see someone did that with the inspection hole area on yours. Might I recommend fabbing up a large rectangular inspection panel for that spot?
Makes working in there easier and cuts down on the drumming right there.
The thread I started on Stewart wingtips has pictures on how I did mine.
In my opinion, and that's not worth much, you could probably use rejuvenator (if Butyrate) on the first picture. for the second and third (and first if polyfiber) I would wet sand the area out beyond the area of the cracks, repaint it either with a spraygun or those little Preval sprayers you can get at home depot. You don't necessarily need to get down to the fabric but feather it out like you would for any paint job and follow the manual for instructions as to mixing. Butyrate has to be thinned and polyfiber may have to be to spray properly. You SHOULD be able to look in the aircraft records and see what it was last covered with but I think it may be Butyrate as I think it is not polytone. As I recall Polytone has a pinkish base coat nor blue but that also could be the silver coat showing through and not the fill coat.
A.) determine what you have. B.) get and review the manual.
I have sanded spots like that before and then used an airbrush gun to touch it up. I got my airbrush in a craft store where they also sell cans of compressed air.
The main question I have is concerning the area around the inspection rings. Is there anything that fills those cracks ? Kinda like bondo for a car? I know they make fill and Glaze . I did get the manual so Im about ready to take this on ( with my I/A watching. )
Nothing! the only way to do it right is to peel the finish off to remove the cracked areas then build it back up starting with Nitrate, then silver and finally color as specified in the Ceconite manual.
So i have Aerothane and a older recover job it has picked up a lot of small cracks at stress points.
My method for fixing small hairline cracks.
Sand down top layer of paint to open up the crack and inspect the silver to see if it is damaged. Spray silver in as needed, sand around cracks to help the new paint get some adhesion to the old stuff and blend a little better re apply paint layers with a paint brush pushing paint in to the cracks i have found sprayers do not seem to want to get paint in to the cracks it just builds up around the out side. Not as nice looking but good enough at 10ft and keeps the UV and water out.
If wings are the same read the Randolph covering book on rejuvenators. They put the plasticizers, flexible stuff back in the dope. Will take some time to make it look nice. I have used a small artist brush to fill in the cracks and my finger tip followed by several spray coats. You might consider doing this to fix the drumming. https://www.shortwingpipers.org/foru...ming-Wing-Root
I do not have the patience to try and repair fabric that has been top coated with anything other than dope. I have only known one person that is successful with these repairs. I have been known to just recover the piece rather than deal with the frustration of trying to make a silk purse out of pig skin. Especially on a customers aircraft. Cost to repair is exorbitant and never looks decent for any length of time. Once the cracks, flaking and ringworms start, they are not going to get better and you will chase them all over the aircraft. It can usually be traced back to improper recovery practices. Spraying on the first coat is a really common example of being lazy and poor workmanshIp. You just cannot get the fiber encapsulation needed on Dacron without brushing on the first coat. Then, poor workmanship is covered by a slick top coat.
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Paint Cracks
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