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Melted canopy

B

bubba

Member
I got a utility lamp to close to the canopy. This caused the canopy to melt causing a concave in the canopy.
I tried pushing the canopy back up after heating it to 200 degrees.the concave got worst.
I turned the canopy upside down, heated up the Plexiglas from the inside of the canopy and was able to remove some of the disfigurement.
I then turned the canopy over, placed utility lamp on the outside of the canopy, heated up to 225 degrees and placed a mold on the inside of the canopy and place 60 pounds of mold and left over night. This got more of the concave out, I still have about a 1/8 inch concave.
In all this stretching and melting I created two nipples on the outside of the Plexiglas about the size of a human nipple. I added heat to 250 degrees to outside of canopy pen pointing the area, but they did not go down.

Help
 
[partially off-topic]

It's been my experience that plexi does strange things when you heat it up on its own. One of the things I make is sliding windows for bubble canopies, and I've found that you can't just drape heated plexi over the form and expect it to take on the form's shape. Depending on whether the temperature ramp is going up or down, I've found that sometimes the plexi arches up away from the form. I'm pretty sure that this is due to uneven heating through the thickness of the material, but it might also be due to residual stresses from the original forming operation.

Anyhow, what I do is make an edge capture frame that pushes the heated plexi against the form around the perimeter of the shape, and hold it until it cools. That seems to do it.
 
That sucks!....I thought I was the only one that that happened to. I ended up replacing my entire canopy. 😏

Mark
 
Your Idea is good. I had a concave mold done and used it in the inside after heating it. The shape took place but not completely.
 
Bob Kuykendall said:
[partially off-topic]

It's been my experience that plexi does strange things when you heat it up on its own. One of the things I make is sliding windows for bubble canopies, and I've found that you can't just drape heated plexi over the form and expect it to take on the form's shape. Depending on whether the temperature ramp is going up or down, I've found that sometimes the plexi arches up away from the form. I'm pretty sure that this is due to uneven heating through the thickness of the material, but it might also be due to residual stresses from the original forming operation
Im interested in one of your windows for bubble canopy, I have an RV8A,
More info please
Thx
Al Dilger [email protected]
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