jlrskymaster

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I am recovering an old Sig Astrohog, and after removing the covering, I find that the balsa up by the engine area is soft and fuel soaked. I plan to apply a coat of balsarite to the entire structure, but is there some additional things I should be doing to prepare this "wet" area?

Thanks

BadSplice

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The trick Ive seen the most goes like this: place a paper towel over the wood, and use your heat gun on it, pressing on the paper towel. The heat should draw most of the oil up and into the paper towel. Keep doing this until the oil seems to be gone, then soak some denatured alcohol into the wood and use the paper towel and heat again. This should get almost all the oil out, and then the balsarite should be enough to get the covering on.

jlrskymaster

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thanks - that should do the trick

Campy

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Get some K2R spot remover and spray it on the area and let dry, then brush off. You will need to repeat this a couple of times. Then hit it with a heat gun to bring more oil up out of the wood.

If you don't have K2R in your area use corn starch to remove the oil. The corn starch is cheaper, but it is messier and will take about twice the number of applications as K2R.

When you have removed as much oil as possible, give that area a coat of SIG "StixIt". Once you have StixIt on the wood the covering is not coming off without a good amount of the wood coming with it. If you need to remove the covering in that area, apply heat and keep the heat on it while removing the covering.

Rodney

Another trick I've successfully used is to coat the effected area with as thin a layer of any aliphatic glue as you can smear on it (after removing all the oil you can using the above mentioned methods), let the glue dry completely then just iron on your covering. Aliphatics make a pretty good heat sensitive attachment method without any other adhesive used.

Mastertech

My Feedback: (31)

Get some kitty litter (or speedy dry from your local garage) and stand the airplane up in a pail and fill up to just past the fuel soaked area and it'll draw the oil out. Let it set a few days. Then follow up with K2R if required.

Michaelj2k

Just make sure that kitty dosen't make a pit stop! [X(]

buzzingb

My Feedback: (2)

This may sound krazy but I have use this several times and it seems to work. Spray down the area with carb cleaner that you use for automotive purposed and use a paper towel to wipe the area. I thought the acid would deteriate the wood but it doesn't seem to because it evaporates quickly. I have tried kitty litter, K2R, corn starch, paper towel & heat, none of these will work that well.

jessiej

Indeed the carb cleaner works well, but will work even better in combination with cornstarch, baking soda, etc, to absorb the oil as it is liquified by the solvent. BTW, if carb cleaner is indeed acid(?) the soda will neutralize the acid.

jess

appydriver

Also you can try Gun Scubber, Most any gun shop or sporting goods store was it. Its very fumy but removes grease and oil extremely well. It would work much like carb cleaner only it is non-flammable.

flightprep

We had similar problem with an old VK Cherokee Babe we were refurbishing; couldn't find any K2R, so we blotted it out with methanol and paper towels )put some witght on it an levae it for a few hours, do this several times) and then finish off with soem some corn starch(hit it with the heat gun too, that helped) . We then scraped away the soft balsa, and then reinforced the area (it was the furs front at the firewall) with thin CA a coat of acrylic water soluble varnish, and then did a covering wrap with tyvek (envelope material) that had been pin-holed and slathered with a thin layer of 30 minute epoxy. Strong as an ox now, and it didn't add much weight. Painted over it with epoxy spray enamel, then monokoted. There's a thread going on the VK Cherokee Babe if you're interested. If your area is weakened, go for the the tyvek/epoxy wrap, you won't be disappointed!

Good luck
Flghtprep

ram3500-RCU

My Feedback: (221)

This works well. I also used to use Balsarite, but now, I use hair spray. Sounds crazy, but try it. Much easier than brushing Balsarite and a fraction of the cost. Spray two coats on and that covering isn't going anywhere.