Valkyrie?s Turn?.

[Mike S]

The creepy eye is gone

[GregM]

Careful Mike! The stink eye is next

[mlwynn]

I was just thinking how much more interesting this project would have been had you sikaflexed the canopy and skirt. I did and shudder to think about what would be needed to replace the canopy. Pretty much toss the whole assembly and start from scratch, I think.

Regards,

Michael Wynn
RV 8 Finishing
San Ramon, CA

[RVbySDI]

Originally Posted by Mike S

The creepy eye is gone

I was just thinking the same thing.

Paul, as much as I think your paint scheme on Tsam is great, your personal picture as an avatar is much much better.

[Ironflight]

Originally Posted by mlwynn

I was just thinking how much more interesting this project would have been had you sikaflexed the canopy and skirt. I did and shudder to think about what would be needed to replace the canopy. Pretty much toss the whole assembly and start from scratch, I think.

Yeah - I dont' have anythgin against the concept of Sikaflex holding on a canopy (I am pretty sure that it has no flight issues at all), there are aspects of maintenance that could be troublesome. I'd hate to have to uild a new skirt....

Originally Posted by RVbySDI

Paul, as much as I think your paint scheme on Tsam is great, your personal picture as an avatar is much much better.

Heh, heh, heh.....I guess we'll just keep that "eye" Avatar in reserve for when folks get out of line....

[Ironflight]

OK, so another seven hours of work on top of what I did in the first post brought it back to flying status ? not finished, because it still needs fiberglass work and paint, but at least the Val is once again airworthy, and the canopy is now pristine!

This portion?s notes:

1) Removed all the clecos and took the canopy off the frame for trimming the sides. I did this with the cut-off wheel and angel die grinder with sanding discs. Dressed the edges with Dremel sanding drum and finished with 600 grit sandpaper to polish.
2) Drilled all holes in the sides of the canopy to ?? with plexi bit. Drilled the front edge holes one size up from 1/8? per standard Van?s instructions.
3) Cut little grommets out of surgical tubing for all the ?? holes. They fit just fine with friction alone, so I didn?t use any adhesive to hold them in place.
4) Replaced canopy and clecoed from front to back, including the skirt. The fit isn?t exactly the same, as the canopy shape isn?t exactly the same. The rear of the skirt was a very tight fit, and I left several clecos out rather than pre-loading the assembly excessively.
5) Riveted the skirt to the frame using CS4-4?s, then used AACQ4-4?s for the skirt/canopy/frame sandwich holes. I gave each hole a swipe of countersink with a deburring handle so that the rivet heads will be a little below the surface ? I?ll fill with micro before paint. This will hopefully keep the rivets hidden.
6) After all the rivets were in place, I turned the canopy upside down and used silicone to fill the gaps between frame/canopy/skirt from underneath (you can?t see this area from inside the cockpit, but this ads some sealing and a little bit of adhesive in the back).
7) After the caulk had cured, I test-fit the canopy on the plane, and found that I have a bit of a gap in the back ? I?ll fix that with glass and micro before paint ? this is art, not engineering, and all it needs is a pleasing shape.
A few pictures (sorry for the focus ? good camera is on a trip ? this is the old shop camera that has problems with it?s macro focus?.):

A sharp razor blade makes it easy to slice washers out of surgical tubing


Fuzzy picture, but you can sort of see the surgical rubber grommets in the ?? holes


Skirt riveted back on to frame ? not that the rivet heads are over-countersunk


The shipping box makes great work stand to hold the canopy inverted! Note the caulking underneath the low frame tube.


Paul

[RV10inOz]

PD

You have such a beautiful machine, it would be a shame to attend the annual gala event in anything less than perfect order.

I do admire your work, on and off the boards, and mostly with your family fleet!

DB

[Ironflight]

One of the problems with refitting the bubble on one of these airplanes is that no two are EXACTLY alike. Therefore, when you try to match things up with the skirt, you are bound to have to make a few adjustments to the fit. In the case of the Val, once I lined up all of the forward rivet holes, the skirt road just a fraction high on the bubble in the back, and that made it gap across the back ? it was about ?? high in the center rear. This clearly needed fixing. Fortunately, it?s fiberglass, and once I had committed to repainting anyway, it?s just a matter of cutting, grinding, and ?gooping?.

In this case, I split the skirt down the middle and found that if I took out a wedge-shaped piece, I could lay the two sides nice and flat against the bubble and the fuselage. I located the rivet holes in the bubble and frame underneath and drilled two new holes in the skirt to correspond, then popped in a couple of rivets. From there, it was simply a matter of grinding down a bit to create a scarf joint and laying in a few layers of glass. I finishing pass with some micro to fill the weave and get it ready for the paint shop.

Here are a few pictures of the ?flyable? (not painted) job:

I cut a wedge out of the rear, then riveted the edges ot the canopy/frame after wrapping it to a nice fit.


A few layers of fiberglass ? more at the back middle where it goes over the track


A little Micro?.a little sanding?.


Ready to fly?..to the paint shop!


Paul

[Ironflight]

A week at Grady's GLO Custom for touch-up, a visit to the Vinyl Graphics shop for name tags, and she's all ready for Oshkosh!




Now if only she wasn't behind Tsam in the hangar, maybe we'd get out more together....