99% UV blocking, snaps in and out with ease. Ok, "Ultimate" is a strong word, but this is pretty interesting. Got tired of baking in the sun and I would rather not get skin cancer. Still an experiment at this point, but I thought others might benefit. At the very least it does make a great passenger sunshield for those long xc trips. Happy wife happy life? Keep her looking young and beautiful for years to come. I hope somebody else out there wants to make an ultimate sunshade and post some pics!
What you see here cost me $140. These are made from .020 thick polycarbonate sheet that I tinted with film. The 2 pieces of polycarbonate cost $30 total, and the tint was $90. This sunshield consists of 2 separate pieces, each forming a complete arch, one over the pilot and one over the passenger. The arches rest in place upon the canopy frame. Notice in the second pic how the arches are straight, thus cut the corner of the bubble, effectively lowering head height. My RV-4 has a canopy mounted as low as can go, and I was able to tweak the arch design so I lost about 1 inch of head height. I made it so the fwd and aft arches overlapped by about .5" at the rollbar.
Current design issue, glare/reflection. I really did not mean to buy mirror tint, although it looks pretty darn cool. This tint is also mirrored on the inside, and causes lots of glare and reflections which are a bit distracting. However, even with lots of glare and what seemed like more limited peripheral vision, I had absolutely no issues landing in a gusty crosswind. Did some aerobatics and my head with david clarks never touched it, so the reduced interior space seems a non issue at this point. The problem is that most tint film is not made to put on plastic, "they" say it will eventually bubble and can be hard to remove. I found only 2 options for 99% UV tint that was made for plastic, and it was expensive. I may experiment with cheaper auto tint on my remaining scraps of plastic.
What would I do different? Use a thinner plastic sheet. They had 020, 015, and 010 available. The 015 and 010 felt very flimsy, but in hindsight I think it will be just fine once inserted into the canopy. I even think the 010 could be rolled up for stowage. I will experiment and report back.
Here is the polycarbonate sheet that I bought. Note they do not list the thin stuff on this website. Their store is local to me and they had the sizes I mentioned on the shelf, you may have to call to get it. I bought two 24x48 sheets.
http://www.eplastics.com/lexan_clear_polycarbonate_sheet
Here is the tint I bought. Again this store was local to me. From the picture on the website I didn't quite expect the tint to be so perfectly silver.
https://www.windowtint.com/collecti...plexi-2-mil-silver-20-vlt-window-tinting-film
The hardest part about this was making the patterns. It is an iterative process and takes lots of time to get right.
Aft arch only, worked great in formation, got no complaints.
What you see here cost me $140. These are made from .020 thick polycarbonate sheet that I tinted with film. The 2 pieces of polycarbonate cost $30 total, and the tint was $90. This sunshield consists of 2 separate pieces, each forming a complete arch, one over the pilot and one over the passenger. The arches rest in place upon the canopy frame. Notice in the second pic how the arches are straight, thus cut the corner of the bubble, effectively lowering head height. My RV-4 has a canopy mounted as low as can go, and I was able to tweak the arch design so I lost about 1 inch of head height. I made it so the fwd and aft arches overlapped by about .5" at the rollbar.
Current design issue, glare/reflection. I really did not mean to buy mirror tint, although it looks pretty darn cool. This tint is also mirrored on the inside, and causes lots of glare and reflections which are a bit distracting. However, even with lots of glare and what seemed like more limited peripheral vision, I had absolutely no issues landing in a gusty crosswind. Did some aerobatics and my head with david clarks never touched it, so the reduced interior space seems a non issue at this point. The problem is that most tint film is not made to put on plastic, "they" say it will eventually bubble and can be hard to remove. I found only 2 options for 99% UV tint that was made for plastic, and it was expensive. I may experiment with cheaper auto tint on my remaining scraps of plastic.
What would I do different? Use a thinner plastic sheet. They had 020, 015, and 010 available. The 015 and 010 felt very flimsy, but in hindsight I think it will be just fine once inserted into the canopy. I even think the 010 could be rolled up for stowage. I will experiment and report back.
Here is the polycarbonate sheet that I bought. Note they do not list the thin stuff on this website. Their store is local to me and they had the sizes I mentioned on the shelf, you may have to call to get it. I bought two 24x48 sheets.
http://www.eplastics.com/lexan_clear_polycarbonate_sheet
Here is the tint I bought. Again this store was local to me. From the picture on the website I didn't quite expect the tint to be so perfectly silver.
https://www.windowtint.com/collecti...plexi-2-mil-silver-20-vlt-window-tinting-film
The hardest part about this was making the patterns. It is an iterative process and takes lots of time to get right.
Aft arch only, worked great in formation, got no complaints.
Last edited:
