Separating Epoxy Joints
 

I crashed a 100cc Yak last summer breaking off the firewall as shown in the pictures. Other that a repairable ding in a wing, the rest of the parts including the cowl were undamaged. I'm looking for some advice on the separating the epoxy joints in the firewall. I want to remove the two side frames going from the front of the engine box to the rear of the wings so they can be repaired or remade. The mfg used a lot of hot melt which is pretty easy to undo using rubbing alcohol, but the epoxy joints are tough. Any suggestions?

Chuck

I think if it were me I'd glue it back together at the break then use doublers for strength

I agree with jetmech05 but if there's something you really need to get apart, a heat gun may soften the epoxy joint enough.

Heat gun- works on "real" epoxy.

You can also heat up Xacto blades and it will cut the epoxy. Just be careful so as not toburn or cut yourself. Good Luck, Dave

Bolt a flat blade to your soldering gun tip, the hot blade will separate most joints.

Yep... heat. I "hot-knifed" a stab off of an old airframe just the other day... Between the heat gun and hot knife they can do alot with cured epoxy. I like the "soldering iron knife" idea.. If I had a ton of joints to work on, I'd for sure go that route. For the hot-xacto use a propane torch if you can... I actually just used a candle I had handy, which worked fine, but it does leave a little carbon to clean up.. no big deal.

Your plane being an ARF actually didn't sustain too much damage... It looks to be a pretty clean break... and very fixable. Good luck.

Thanks guys for the feedback. I will try them before working on the plane.