AmphibXP,
You obviously are on amphibious floats. So, when you are out in the middle of nowhere, how do you test the floats for leaks? Land them on a gravel bar and fill them with water?
Cubdrvr is talking about straight floats, which means that he has to get them OUT of the water with a trailer, or whatever to locate leaks. If you are that close to civilization, it's pretty likely you can get them to a vacuum cleaner.
Wipline does not rivet their keels, they're bonded. EDOs are riveted. If you're getting leaks sitting on a beach, you must be in pretty rough water, but it certainly can happen.
I wouldn't argue with Wip's procedure, but in any case, to repair leaks, it HELPS if the floats are dry. That's pretty hard to do with water inside the floats. There are sealers that work when the floats are wet, but the beauty of using gas tank sloshing compound is that, with a vacuum pulled on the float compartment, and painting the sealer on the outside, the vacuum actually pulls the sealer into the seam. The sealer then sets up, and the seam is really sealed.
If you apply a sealer on the inside or the outside, all it does is cover the leak, it doesn't fix it. Sooner or later, that sealer "covering" may come off, and you have a leak again.
Use the sloshing compound, with a vacuum, and they won't leak again, at least not there. If it's a big leak on a seam, you may have to re-buck the rivet line first, then seam seal it.
Finally, if you are generating leaks that you have to deal with on a day to day basis, you are really using those floats pretty hard. Please don't take offense at that, I'm just saying that's not what most folks experience, including a lot of commercial operators, myself included.
I've got well over 2000 hours of operational use on a set of Baumann floats, and they've never leaked, and never been touched. There are a lot of river operations in there, as well. I also have over 3000 hours on a set of Wip 4000 floats on a 206, and they've never been touched.
I just don't see people having to re-seal floats very often in operational use.
When a set of floats has been sitting a long time, or they've been damaged, it's always best to go over them BEFORE putting them on the airplane, so that they are easier to repair.
That's the scenario that Cubdrvr is talking about here, not out in the middle of the wilderness.
And, hey, Milwaukee now makes a vacuum cleaner that operates on one of their 18 volt batteries, like the battery operated screwguns use.
Maybe that's my excuse to buy one of those puppies.........
MTV