Hey guys,


Got another question for the 185/sheet metal gurus out there

I recently had a few people on my aircraft, long story short the pax door on my 185F got a little over extended and didnt want to immediately shut (factory style internal door stop rod, not a new door steward), a overly "helpful" pax decided to assist without me knowing, while I was looking at the inside the door, he pushed on the outside..HARD, well now I have a protruding dent on the outside of my door skin, looks almost like a 1/4' rivet shaped outward dent.


Any idea how to best get the door to its former unmolested glory?

Any good shops in the north east that could do the work?


Thanks,
James

Can you get to the inside of the skin in that area to back it up? I've had good luck cold working aluminum dents/protrusions like you explain by backing it up with a bucking bar and slowly working the protrusion with a body hammer. For larger/sharper dents I'll use a piece of wood like a 2x4 to back it up and work it with a flat anvil on a rivet gun. For cold working contoured or compound bends I'll use a shot bag to back it up while carefully working it with either a body hammer or a hammer and brass drift. The key is to always get behind where you're hitting with something weather it be a bucking bar, wood or shot bag and very slowly work the area. Like any metal work take it slow and one step at a time, if you don't have the patience to not try and fix it in one whack with a big hammer get someone with some sheet metal experience to help.

There's also the chance its simply too distorted or damaged to be simply cold worked and will need to be cut out/patched or need the skin replaced altogether but I've cleaned up some pretty ugly dents by cold working.

This is a good example of why to tell tell pax that we will do all the door opening & closing.

hotrod180 wrote:This is a good example of why to tell tell pax that we will do all the door opening & closing.

Agreed.....I currently have my passengers side door handle assembly laying on my desk in pieces thanks to a passenger manhandling it like it was a 1990 ford F150.

hotrod180 wrote:This is a good example of why to tell tell pax that we will do all the door opening & closing.

Indeed, though this was a slightly abnormal situation and frankly I didn't even notice the guy was about to push he door from the outside till he pushed it, never underestimate the stupidity of some folks, just bad upbringing I guess.

I remember my grandmother teaching me never to put your feel on a cushion, knee a chair, slam doors, ask permission, etc, at the time I think I might have been in kindergarten or maybe 1st grade. Outside of demoing stuff, which would be ending up in the trash, you don't manhandle ANYTHING, and even in demo if you're smart you don't need to man handle stuff that much.

Anywho, ain't going to be on my tab, if you're going to be stupid you gotta take your licks, hoping it can be worked out, but all else fails it'll be a new skin, the door didn't have a patch before, ain't going to have one now.

Best advice I received was when I was in high school ROTC, which is applicable to just about anything mechanical, which was "don't force parts". It actually had to do with field stripping an M1 rifle, but it seems that whenever I've violated that rule, either I've broken something or mashed my fingers.

Cary