About
Build log for an RV-10

By
Jae Chang
web@jline.com

Contents (Index)
These are links to the major kits for the project.

Section 18: Proseal Left Tank. (9 / 172 wings / 509 total)

My first real prosealing session turned into a bit of a nightmare. Preparation is key, but there are so many things to prepare, i guess i did not have everything ready.

My initial goal was to butter up 2 stiffeners, only, just to test things out.

First, I used a digital kitchen scale (brand new) to measure the base, 10g, that worked well. This scale has a nifty feature, where you can zero the scale and continuing measuring in another item. Thus, I zeroed the scale and added the hardener. Unfortunately, the scale does not work well between 0 to 3 grams. My goal was to add only 1g of hardener, but the scale stays at 0, until all of a sudden it goes 1-2-3. As a result, I probably added way too much hardener for this first batch.

The proseal was much more viscous than i remembered it when sealing in the foam ribs in the elevators. anyway, i went ahead and buttered in 2 stiffeners and clecoed every hole.

I then pushed my luck and started to butter up the fuel cap flange and the drain. The fuel cap flange was easy: butter up and cleco in. I then realized I should clean out the proseal from the inside flange. I used lacquer thinner for this, but surprisingly, it did not clean up the proseal very well. I had to literally go through a dozen strips of paper towel to clean out the fuel flange.

On to the drain, I buttered the drain and clecoed it in. This time, I thought I would try to rivet this one wet. This was a MAJOR PITA. I had to drill out at least 5-6 rivets. The rivets are slippery with proseal, which causes the rivet set to slip or get off-center, causing offset shop heads. Crap!!!

It only got worse, when i tried to drill out the rivets. Now i had aluminum chips mixed in with proseal, which all had to get cleaned out. I went through another dozen or so pieces of paper towel to see well enough to know what i was doing.

My first proseal session was a complete nightmare. I did not expect it to be as bad as this. A lot of people on the forums talk down the difficulty with proseal, but for whatever reason, i had the typical expected nightmare with it.

DAY 2

On day 2, I bought MEK, which is absolutely a must have for cleaning up proseal. It literally works 10x better than lacquer thinner.

First, I tried to wet rivet a couple of stiffeners in. This was definitely quite messy. I then back-riveted the stiffeners that i had clecoed in the night before. Riveting the clecoed in stiffeners the night before, is definitely my preference, since the proseal is no longer sticky.

I did take a countersink to clean out the dried proseal from the dimple. I then took a toothpick, dipped in proseal, then pushed into the rivet hole making sure to cover up the dimple. I then jammed in the rivet. Because the proseal is sticky enough to keep the rivet in place, there was no need to use any rivet tape. I could stick in all the rivets of the stiffener, and back rivet them all in in a session.

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