Door sill protector

A

Astro John

Well-known member
I’m working on the door sills, and am thinking long term about what I will do after fabric. I am thinking about only riveting about half of the tabs, and using nut plates on the other half. I would fabricate a sill protector that would go over the fabric, and screw down to the tabs with the nut plates. This would allow an easy change if they every got too scuffed up for my liking.

Does this sound reasonable? I’m open to ideas.
 
That's what I did for the rear cargo door sill (nut plates for the shared screws holding the flooring and scuff plate along the sill.. Seems reasonable to me. For the front doors, think I'm just going to use PK screws into the Al former to hold the scuff plates.
 
Keep an eye on clearance. I suspect that You may have 1/8" right now between the door frame and the fuselage part. The build up of Fabric + Sill Protector + The hieght of the machine screw might gobble that up. DATA: two washers placed between the two door hinge tabs (one on door, one on the fuselage) can give you some added clearance if the door-window can accommodate it.

I riveted mine down with 3/32" all aluminum pull rivets They are easy to drill out but when you do the rivet kernal will float around inside.
 
Thanks for the replies.. gives me some stuff to the consider. I’m planning on doing the gull doors, so I should have room, at least for the front doors.
 
I am either going to use yellow (mine is painted yellow) Gorilla tape, or Oratex trim tape. The Oratex trim is "heat" actived and removed, not permanent like the glue used for the Oratex fabric.
 
That’s an interesting idea. That might work for the front doors for me. I think the cargo door sill will take more abuse.
 
I can think of a lot of areas to use a heat activated removable abrasion product. Can you give us a link?
 
I layed up carbon fiber sills in place and put a clear coat on them. They are attached with PK screws into the steel door formers. They may get scuffed up over time but can be refinished. If I was planning on loading heavy cargo (motorcycle, 50 gal drum of fuel etc) into the back I probably would have gone with stainless steel.
 
in the US you have to go to the better aircraft fabric website and then call them to order finishing tapes that come in several sizes. They can send you a catalogue of all their colors and sizes. I'd be curious where else you think those heat activated finishing tapes would be useful? https://betteraircraftfabric.com/
 
TJ_Slice said:
I’m working on the door sills, and am thinking long term about what I will do after fabric. I am thinking about only riveting about half of the tabs, and using nut plates on the other half. I would fabricate a sill protector that would go over the fabric, and screw down to the tabs with the nut plates. This would allow an easy change if they every got too scuffed up for my liking.

Does this sound reasonable? I’m open to ideas.
Click to expand...

I did that for the main doors, mostly to keep the looking tidy and avoid people snagging clothing on anything edgy. Its worked great and they are still as good as new, a decade later.
I screwed mine down, which was good as they may need adjustment from time to time.

The overlap of the door onto the sill cover is a source of fretting and wear, my door metal has worn through in a few places. Including room in the design for a thin seal would be preferable than metal-to-metal contact.
 
To be honest, Gorilla Tape is the Duct tape of the 21st century. I have the Oratex so for me it is free, and might use it. Or use it on one side, and Oratex on the other just to see which one wins.
 
Here is what I did. Probably a bit on the heavy side but nice to have the parts you touch all the time a bit more sturdy. The AL covers stick out just a tiny bit so the door lock pins hit it before touching the fabric. For mounting I used stainless rivets because I don't expect to remove these often. Only the any profile at the bottom of the cargo door uses screws with nutplates. This allows for easy removal of the floors.

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