A lead at the Fort Worth hangar told me my torque stripe habit was sloppy, so I switched to marking bolts right after the wrench | Aircraft Mechanics - Guest Forum
A lead at the Fort Worth hangar told me my torque stripe habit was sloppy, so I switched to marking bolts right after the wrench
I used to torque a whole panel and stripe everything at the end, which meant guessing which bolts I had actually hit when I got pulled away mid job. Dale, a 28 year lead at the Fort Worth hangar, watched me do it and just said 'you're painting a picture of what you hope happened.' Now I mark every bolt the second the wrench clicks, and on a 14 bolt flap track last Tuesday I caught one I had missed. Anyone else had a lead call out a habit you didn't know was risky?
Thought the old way was fine for years because I figured I'd remember which bolts I hit. Then I got called off a wing panel for a parts run and came back two hours later with no clue where I left off. I ended up re-torquing half the bolts just to be safe, which wasted way more time than marking as I went ever would. Dale's line about painting a picture of what you hope happened hits hard. Now the wrench clicks and the marker moves, every single time.