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Another RV8

Mikeyb

Well Known Member
I have been working on it for 18 months now. The canopy skirt is sucking my will to live.
 

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Nice!

I did a double take on your garage, looks eerily similar to mine, same layout, same shelves, even the same silver ladder in the corner.

Keep pushing! You can do it ...

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Welcome to VAF

I have been working on it for 18 months now. The canopy skirt is sucking my will to live.

Mike, welcome to VAF:D

Dont let the current issue suck too much of your will----------remember;

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Sand and fill, and sand and fill, and sand and fill, .........
You're getting there. It's looking good! Too late to stop now :D
 
I wish my will was being sapped for similar reasons but I'm not there yet.

It's looking great! Keep going!
 
Hey Andy,
How are you progressing?
Hopefully we get out of lockdown 2.0 in another month, I can get current and take you for that motivation flight, albeit in a 7 or 7a.
Joe
 
Hey Andy,
How are you progressing?
Hopefully we get out of lockdown 2.0 in another month, I can get current and take you for that motivation flight, albeit in a 7 or 7a.
Joe

Joe. I'm juggling availability of build space at the moment but have managed to get the front half of the fuse clecoed together. Still got to sort a pitot and some wiring to get the wing skins on. Would love to catch up sometime in post-lockdown land! A fly sounds great too!
 
I have been working on it for 18 months now. The canopy skirt is sucking my will to live.

YES!! I am SO there right now. I do a little and can't stand it and do something else on the build... then get distracted by life... and get back to it, do a little, can't stand it, do something else... it's dragged into more than a month now, and I've only myself to blame. So I'm going to get back to work on it. Today. Now. Thanks for sharing!
 
Thanks for the encouragement. All the other fiberglass parts in my kit fit well. For a while I thought the skirt might have been for a different airplane. Weeks of agony and despair of work and rework.
Mike
 
I see what I did wrong

I used sikaflex on my canopy frame and skirt. I used clear 1/8” wall plastic tubing as spacers. I trimmed the raw skirt to the scribe lines. Using the 1/8” spacers makes the canopy wider in the middle and taller in the back It makes a big difference at the back of the canopy . I finally cut the skirt off at the rear and made a clay mold. Five layers of 9 oz cloth and a layer of micro filler. A scarf joint in place on the plane and some more filler. I found it helpful to make little u brackets of .040” aluminum to hold the canopy against the spacers. Happy now.
 

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I was just wondering how the fit of the skirt would be affected by the spacers required for the sika. I'm planning to sika my canopy by trying to avoid extra fiberglass work...

Do you think it's possible to use the original skirt if you trimmed it differently from the beginning?

What adjustments to the side skirts, if any, did you have to make for the additional girth?

Thanks!
 
The 1/8” spacers effect the fit everywhere. Attached is a view of the front of the skirt showing the gap at the sides. Turns out this actually fits the fuse well and will be bonded like that

It seems like the extra width/height of the canopy with the spacers should allow you to trim the skirts larger to fit.

The other problem is the angle of the canopy at the back. Even a small change in angle you fit the canopy on the rear frame can result in a big gap

Just glad it’s over
 

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