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Why does nobody talk about the panel screw that ate my whole Saturday in Amarillo
Had a 737 come in for a C check last month at our hangar in Amarillo and one of the kids on my crew spent 40 minutes fighting a single panel screw on the aft galley. He was cussing up a storm, getting ready to drill the head off, when an old timer named Ray walked over and just said, "Reach back behind that lip and push the panel up a hair before you turn it." Turns out the panel had sagged about 1/16 of an inch over the years and the screw was binding on the edge of the hole the whole time. Ray did not even look at it for 10 seconds, and that kid had it out in two turns. I have been turning wrenches for 19 years and nobody ever taught me that, not in A&P school, not in any manual. Now I check for sagged skins on every stubborn fastener before I touch a drill. Ray retired last Friday and we did not even get a real send off for him. What little tricks like that did you pick up from an old timer before they walked out the door?
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seth_carr28d ago
Careful with saying nobody in A&P school teaches it, because they do cover skin sag and hole misalignment in structures, it just never sticks until you're the one cussing at a screw. Ray sounds like the real deal though, those guys are walking manuals.
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