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Covered over rivets

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buzzypeterson

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2010
Messages
177
Location
Wausau, WI USA
Just curious how many of you guys have used body filler over your wing rivets. The previous owner of my plane slapped a bunch on, it’s pretty ugly. He claimed it was to cover up the rivets but I suspect it was because the ribs were low on the spar. The wing bottoms look really good with no filler.

how many of you guys have covered over your rivets?
 
for the amount of work to fill all the rivets vs the benefits it is not worth it. Some guys uses epoxy glue just to fill the tiny holes, but it is a very time consuming process. To smack on a lot of filler just adds unnecessary weight.

To me its not worth the effort.
 
Scott Plischke, the builder of N944SP (the Sonerai in the masthead of this website, now owned by KennyW) said in a post years ago that he filled the rivets and it took him a week to do it, which he didn't consider a long time. Personally, I'm with Induna - not worth the effort. However, whatever the aerodynamic advantage might be there is also the benefit of keeping water out of the wings, something to think about if you expect your airplane to get wet frequently.

Ed
 
I used JB Weld just to fill the holes, easy to do and didn't take very long. Better finished look after painting, no tiny holes all over the wing
 
994SP had quite a bit of detail like this. I think Scott used a bit of filler and high-build primer. The end result was that hardly any rivets are visible on the wings.

The downside to this is that there are a few places where the finish has cracked over the rivet heads. Its noticeable enough now, that I'm going to have to do something to repair it soon.
 
I filled the bottom stainless pulled rivets, and left the top aliminum flush bucked rivets exposed. Used 2 part icing filler to fill them.
 
I filled mine on the top surface. Wouldn't do it again, but when i repainted my wings I started to remove the filler and it was going to be a royal pita to remove it all so i left it.
 
My wings were filled on top when I acquired my project. The finish was starting to crack along the span-wise seam of the top skins. When I repainted, I stripped all of it out. It took a long time and was a lot of work, but I'm pleased with the result. The pulled rivets are not very noticeable and like someone said: these are metal wings ...
 
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