T-16 S/N 5399 T.D. 97377 Restoration

[horsa]

The chemical dipping process can be expensive since they apparently charge by weight and not by surface area. So anything armor will cost quite a bit more than sheet metal panels or small parts and brackets. That could well be part of the reason why they did my hull for such a cheap price as they saw pictures and we talked it up and made a deal before they ever got back to asking how much it all weighed. If the price had been what they want to charge others for the work now, I wouldn't have used the service due to my budget at the time.

But knowing what I do now that it's done and I've seen the results, I think I would still dip it if I were to start another project. The chemicals can clean out areas that sand blasting wouldn't be able to reach.

In terms of what Lynn said about the floor on a sand blasted carrier rusting after the fact, I was worried about that on mine before I found the chemical dip place. Part of my rusty floor looked flat and smooth while other areas were deeply pitted. I tested it with a hammer and was able to break off some of the flat areas and found the wavy pitted metal underneath. So I ended up getting my air chisel and went over the entire floor several times. That left my entire floor wavy and pitted but it was at least solid metal. I figured a sand blaster would only be able to work the exposed metal so didn't want to have a problem later on. Odds are the chemical dipping would have gotten to most of the lower layer on its own but I still would have had problems I think since I'd have primed the upper surface metal that might have broken off later. So I'd recommend anyone planning either process should go over the floor really well before hand. You might tear off a lot of metal but it's not good metal. That way any needed repairs can be done before you have everything striped and primed.

I'm not sure why the original floor was as I found it. It really seemed like a thin sheet of metal had been laid over the thicker armor hull down there at first. And water got between them and rotted one underneath and weakened the upper layer from beneath it. Must be part of the old laminated armor process where the outer edges are hardened and the inside is left mild.