Fiberglass Question - Skirt overlap

Canopy and skirts are installed on my RV-8 and I am now looking at making the windscreen fairing and molding strip.

Problem: My skirt sits about 5/8 inch above the fuselage.

Question: How should I build up the mating area under the windscreen so that it will overlap the skirt? It would take a gazillion layers of cloth.

Would it be acceptable to build up the area with flox and then add a layer of cloth on top of the flox?

Thanks for any suggestions.



Mike Draper
RV-8 N468RV
TMX 0360, CS
Finishing, Finishing, Finishing...

Hmmm? Don't the skirts normally slide under the little aluminum extension below the rollbar. Is Lloyd from Co. Springs out there? I'm told he's finished tons of 8 canopies

Looks OK

I don't think you have anything out of the ordinary here.

By the time you build up to fair in the windscreen it won't be that big of a gap.

I did build up with filler first and then fiberglassed over.

Here are a couple of pictures of mine. Hope it helps.

Ted

Nope, nothing weird here. I did the same as Ted. Like he said, by the time you are done with the windshield the canopy skirt will just slide under nicely. You'll need to have glass to overlap the rear canopy and skirt but using filler (flox or micro balloons) will help to get the shape right.

Thanks for the feedback.

I was thinking about building up the area with some micro balloons and then adding a few layers of fiberglass cloth.

For some reason I was under the impression that it was not acceptable to add layers of fiberglass on top of a base of micro balloons.

Are there any gotchas to watch for in this regards?

Ted, nice looking bird. Those pictures are good motivation to build on.

Mike Draper
RV-8 N468RV
TMX 0360 CS
Finishing, Finishing, Finishing..

I would use the cottonflox it has the strength you'll need. Microballons & epoxy in that large of a fill can crack & fracture even underneath the cloth layup. You can use a plastic 3" waste fitting, (plumbing pipe) cut the bell end off then cut a 1/4 of it out to wipe in your cottonflox mixture. It'll be real rough looking when your done. Fill in the voids with a popsicle stick, cover it with Dacron cloth (Peel Ply) & wipe it again with your radius tool (plumbing pipe bell). After it cures pull the Dacron off & it's ready for glass or filling. Be sure and mix "Black die" in your epoxy resin this will give you a finished look when looking thru the windshield.

The thing that you need to remember when working with fiberglass is that the micro balloons are more or less for fill. The flox is nothing more than chopped glass which is much stronger and is usually covered with a layer of glass. An example is if you are applying glass on an inside 90 degree angle, you use a filet of flox /epoxy to give you the desired radius to lay the glass over. It makes a very strong layup. Micro balloons are great for filling voids that will later be sanded smooth. Much easier to sand down the micro balloons mixture than trying to sand pure epoxy.