Wing Spar Priming

[P Johnson]

I am trying to decide whether or not to prime the wing spars, the aircraft will not be going on floats as there is very limited places to operate in the UK but we do have a humid climate (damp) over here. My experience of 6061 t6 aluminium is that it has a high tolerance to corrosion, the Sonex that I owned was built nearly entirely of 6061 t6 and after 13 years the aluminium still looked brand new with no corrosion. If I do decide to prime the spars what do you do about the fuel tanks, prime and install or install and try to prime the spars as much as possible?

[bbs428]

Try a search on wing spar alodine, wing spar priming. Lot's of useful info so you can decide your best course.

In my case I alodined the inside and outside the wing spars and bracing before populating with fuel tanks and so forth.

[n85ae]

Since 6061 hardly has problems anyway, I would bet you could slosh the spars with boiled linseed oil
and they would easily exceed the lifespan of the pilot/builder, and be a bunch less hassle than Alodine.
Just leave the spar on end for a day for the excess to drip out, and after a week it would be pretty well
dried.

Just a thought, they do it for 4130 all the time, and it's safe for protecting aluminum

Jeff

[alexM]

I etched and Alodined my spars and inserts using a piece of PVC pipe with caps on the ends.

After peering inside the wings and fuselage of my 55 year old Citabria I became way more worried about the life of the wood parts than either the steel or aluminum. That's why I became a fanatic about getting good epoxy varnish coating on all the wood.