Thompson's water seal

[Jlwright]

I am thinking of lightly spraying all my wing ribs with Thompson's water seal to protect them. My XL will be stored inside and can't imagine I will have to worry about wood rot from moisture. I will do some tests to make sure the fabric adhesive will stick but that is about the only thing I can see as a problem. Should be lighter than varnish somewhat too. Any thoughts on why not to do this?

[riorex2002]

keep us posted on your progress,

[Murray Randall]

Yes!  I don't see any information on the weight of wood preservatives.  Please, does anyone have experience with the various alternatives?   Conventional urethane varnishes sure look HEAVY.   Thompson's site has no data.  I E-mailed a request for any data thompson's might have, but have not received an answer.   Any advice out here?     thanks    Murray

[Jlwright]

I have a leftover wing rib from my Airbike that I will weigh and spray with Thompson water seal. I have an electronic gram scale so I should be able to get a fairly accurate weight. I'll get back when it dries.

[Steve]

Yes!  I don't see any information on the weight of wood preservatives.  Please, does anyone have experience with the various alternatives?   Conventional urethane varnishes sure look HEAVY.   Thompson's site has no data.  I E-mailed a request for any data thompson's might have, but have not received an answer.   Any advice out here?     thanks    Murray

For your reading pleasure - note solids % - attached:

[Jlwright]

At 32% and 8 lbs. per gallon (a guess) then a gallon of sprayed material wold weigh 2-1/2 lbs. I can't imagine using over a quart on all the ribs or around 10 oz. of dried material.
I'll check and see how hard it will be to buy it where I live.

[Steve]

At 32% and 8 lbs. per gallon (a guess) then a gallon of sprayed material wold weigh 2-1/2 lbs. I can't imagine using over a quart on all the ribs or around 10 oz. of dried material.
I'll check and see how hard it will be to buy it where I live.

If this were my experiment I'd not let the sealer be where the fabric is being glued down...

[Jlwright]

Just for fun I'll do one with Thompson's and cover it and see what happens.

[rockiedog2]

If this were my experiment I'd not let the sealer be where the fabric is being glued down...

exactly my thoughts. i wud tape off the top/bottom of the ribs and spray the thompson's then varnish the gluing surface with polyfiber EV400 epoxy varnish. sand the nibs offa that/blow and brush the sand dust off then you got a proven reliable gluing surface. if youre using Polytack or similar fabric cement there may be a problem with it attacking hardware store varnish but no problems with that have been reported to my knowledge
i like to experiment but there are some areas that i don't like to deviate from what's been shown to be reliable...like gluing the fabric to the wings and the like. i do think the Thompson's is a worthy experiment. i might semi soak a glue joint in it to see what happens...

[Skyboltone]

As long as we're spraying stuff around, perhaps maybe we should spray some ordinary hardware store polyurethane varnish and something like Stitts EV-400 on a 1 square foot piece of something (cardboard, birch ply, etc) to get an idea of how much we're actually accomplishing here?  

Just thinking.....
Dan