The beautiful weekend weather provided lots of incentive to get busy on
the snake's tank this weekend but my wife felt I should attend my
daughter's high school graduation and entertain the house guests staying
over for the big event instead. My wife won. Still, I did get the
opportunity to bend another ear with my gas tank tales of woe. Not only
that I was able to present the evidence first hand. The lucky ear
possessor was my Dad, lifelong aircraft/boat/auto fanatic. I should
have know he would have another piece to add to the story. As I was
pointing to my now strip-to-the-bare-rusty-metal-protective-coating-less
tank, he informed me that the material it was made of was called
terneplate. This stuff was commonly used to make aircraft gas tanks
many years ago because it was easy to solder and was also rust resistant.
Templates were often made of it too. It consisted of mild steel sheet
plated with a lead/tin alloy (i.e. solder). He had once owned a J3 Cub
which had had a tank made of the same material. He had even repaired it
himself once. He was pretty sure this stuff was still available in
sheets of various gauges from Aircraft Spruce. I don't plan to make a
new tank but at least I know that I was right and the so called experts
I talked to were wrong about what type of plating was on the tank.
Roland Dudley
cobra@hpcdcsn.cdc.hp.com
CSX2282
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