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Bill's RV-10 Builder Page
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Date:  1-18-2013
Number of Hours:  0.00
Manual Reference:  
Brief Description:  Sealing up the Oil Door

Here are some silicone strips I used somewhat successfully to reduce the oil door deformation in flight.

You can see I used the hidden hinge and the two latches on the front and rear edges of the door. I used a piece of foam overlayed with some light wt glass cloth to stiffen the door. I later glommed some graphite strands on top to absolutely no effect. Please ignore those.

In flight, the door would bow outward along 3 of the 4 edges. Notably it did not bow out on the hinge edge since there is a stack of aluminum strips underneath hinge attach point.

I've since added the 3 strips of silicone you see in the pic. It's the same silicone I used for the engine baffling. They are bonded with high temp silicone which is just about the only thing that will bond to that stuff. These significantly reduced the bowing, especially along the left edge where the strip is continuous. Leakage around the latches appears to still allow some bowing along the front and rear edges. Not sure how to address that at this point.

In the end, I'd like to fabricate a new, much stiffer door. A sandwiched carbon fiber piece should do the trick. I like the hinge. I'm not in love with the latches but not sure what I would use in their place. Camlocs might be good but would require a tool to operate.

FYI, I had inserted some small strips of stainless steel into the cowling as catches for the latches. For those of you worried about the door opening in flight, they flew open on me twice when one of the steel catches unbonded itself. The door opened but was securely retained by the hinge only. It turns out you can fly at moderate cruise speeds with the door hanging open. It didn't even appear to be under much stress.
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