Axel - great glass work there! Well done.
Curious how you were able to create such a straight line at the skirt/canopy interface? Did you use fiberglass tape with a woven edge? If not, how were you able to sand the edge down without damaging the canopy in the process?
Spank
I used 4 layers of BIDIRECTIONAL 8.8 oz Rutan fiberglass (Spruce P/N RA7725).
Here are the steps I took.
- Marked where I wanted my canopy skirt
- Filled the canopy gap with foam and shaped it
- Smooth everything out by adding modeling clay
- Applied tape to the canopy and airframe
- Laid the glass (aft, sides, front) and overlapped them
- Let it cure for a week
- Grabbed a corner of the glass and started pulling the skirt away from the canopy/airframe
- Once it came off, the blue marker lines were stuck to the fiberglass
- Used those metal cutting pliers we have with our building kits to cut the glass very close to the blue line
- Cut a piece of 18 inch 2X4 and wrapped it with 60 grid sanding paper
- Sanded the edges until I was happy
- Beveled the edges with fine sand paper
- Placed the shaped skirt on the airframe
- Drilled 6 holes on the canopy and all the holes required on the canopy frame
- Sikaflexed the skirt to the canopy
- Riveted the skirt to the canopy frame
The skirt is not finish yet because it got cold and my shop is not heated. Once temps get up again, I will be applying micro on the skirt to make it as flawless as possible. I hope that helps.
BTW, thanks for the kind words.