When repairing a cowl I try to balance the repairs out and it is important to make the repairs look as if it is part of the original cowl or nice enough to make the cowl look better if not stronger and most important last. One thing is these cowl repairs are time consuming and it is not uncommon to spend 10 to 20 hours just repairing he cowl. In the case of my 180 I replaced the cowl doors with doors I made out of .032.
One of the hardest parts about this job was removing the wings. I do not think they had ever been off and it took some heat, a 5x rivet gun, big hammer and a long brass rod but we finally did it. The owner found a used spar that passed an eddy current test, took…
We used a English Wheel to make this cowl for this Taylorcraft that was once owned by Ramblin’ Rod. Ramblin’ Rod had a children’s show in the 1960’s which kids would go to, sit on the bleachers and watch which I was one of. Using an English wheel is a lot of fun but takes…
Replaced both left and right horizontal tips with Mc Farlane tips using 8 32 screws in place of rivets. The idea is that you can easily change out the tip if damaged, one thing is that if you operate a seaplane you need to put some corrosion protection on the nut plates and screws on…
This is a 12000 hour Cessna 182, the cracks are found in the corner of the web, hard to see. Once the crack was found the aircraft was grounded, no ferry permit allowed. We spent three long days and travel to get the job done
B19 same as B23Sheet metal work is as much an art as a skill. Most of the time there is very little to guide you other than a picture, some references in the maintenance manual or parts manual. And of corse the AC 43.13 to reference to. What also counts I’d how the repair or…
Rebuilding a 170 horizontal..