Brian Trubee wrote:

I'm just going by what Van's Aircraft called out for the
wheel pants brackets. 2024 T-3 is used for skinning the
entire airplane.  As far as conditioning the aluminum goes,
I am heat soaking the parts in my oven at 350 degrees F(190 C)
for 5 hours and then will quench them in ice water. After that,
they should age for 3-4 days.  At least that is what I gleaned
from the article posted above.

Ideally you would want to anneal the raw stock, then work it into the
piece, then precipitation heat treat the finished piece.  But a major
guru of metal work, Kent White, says attempting to anneal 2024 at home
is a fool's errand.  See:

http://www.tinmantech.com/html/aluminum_alloys_continued__par1.html

So be prepared for negative outcomes, err, "learning experiences..."

I put a few extra pieces in the oven that I will use to test
after the process is complete. I'm not sure what Kirk Mueller
is referring to above when he calls out a 2024-T351. From what I
understand the number following the T designation is the temper
of the alloy, and should be a single digit , ranging from 0-6.
I am no expert, so any information that anyone could post (maybe
privately to bktrub@aol.com ) would be useful.

There's much more to the temper code that the one digit. See:
http://www.ez.org/aluminum.htm

T351 is solution heat treated, stress-relieved stretched, and then cold
worked.

Russell Kent

 
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