Re: [VACList] Laying aluminum panel over damaged panel

["T Meeker" <tmeeker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dick,

It's not a question of rivets.  It's a question of the construction of this
sandwich.

If the rivets are removed so the sheet would lay flat I'm guessing that the
original rivet holes weren't picked up again when the new panel was laid
over the old.

The only way for anyone to find all the original rivet holes again is to use
the old skin for a pattern.  It sounds like whoever is doing repairs this
way, including Airstream, is doing the easy thing and not the more difficult
but more correct way of removal of the old and installation of the new.

Sounds like economics to me ... it would certainly cost more to do a like
new job with out this sandwich repair.  Personally, I'd never do a job this
way, the sandwiching of 2 panels.  There will be added weight but perhaps
the labor cost enters into the picture when or if insurance companies are
involved??

Amanda went to aircraft repair people to have her trailer skin replaced
where a forklift put a hole in it.  She has pictures to show if you ask,
both of the hole and the repair done "more correctly" by the aircraft repair
people than a trailer repair facility.

A scab patch is where you put one piece of aluminum over the other.  Guess
in this scenario the section that was replaced or is to be replace will just
be one HUGE scab patch.

A flush repair has underlying support unless it goes from rib to rib and
then it's just overlapped where the closest stringer horizontally would be.
Where the damaged section would be cut out and removed you may have an
additonal row of rivets *unless* the repair intersects with a rib or a
stringer.

Once again, sounds like economics has entered into the picture.

Tom