De-lamination Repair Suggestions Please...

[jeffkersey]

I did not build this airplane. On the right side of the my RV7A. The skirt around the windshield is start to delaminate. Not sure if a passenger caught it with a foot and got it started or what? Will super glue bond this. Hoping to not have to do a bunch of gooping, sanding, and painting to get it to stop...
Thanks for your thoughts...

Jeff

[penguin]

To fix this properly you really should sand off the delaminated glass and lay-up some new. You may be able to get away with a repair. Super glue is next to useless for this as it will set too soon. Use thin, reasonably long set, epoxy resin. Protect the transparency with tape, rough up under the delamed section, perhaps with a broken hack saw blade. Run the epoxy in as far as possible - you may need to gently warm the whole thing to get it to run in. Clamp the whole thing together lightly, possibly with tape - remember epoxy needs some thickness to work properly, but thick epoxy will be brittle. Good luck.

Pete

PS please make the pictures a little smaller so they fit on one screen!

[snopercod]

What I would do is first, drill some 1/8" holes for pop rivets through the area to be repaired. Then I would pry that delamination open and inject structural adhesive in there - Pack it in with a tongue depressor or something. Then use aluminum pop rivets to pull the delamination back together while the structural adhesive cures. Mask off the area below the crack so the adhesive doesn't run down on the good part below.

After that, you'll need to drill out the pop rivets, then sand off the paint down to the bare fiberglass for 1-1/2" on either side of the repair area. Fill the pop rivet holes with flox, then lay up 2-3 layers of fiberglass cloth over the crack, being careful not to get any epoxy on the canopy (best to mask it off beforehand).

With the joint repaired structurally, then you'll have to sand some more and blend in the patch with the existing fiberglass, primer, and paint.

Sorry, but you're in for some gooping and sanding and painting, my friend.

[lr172]

I built a tipper, not a slider, but I am thinking the upper piece is just a huge layup sitting on top of the aluminum skin. It appears that the crack is where the layup ended and everything on bottom is filler used to taper it into the side skin. I believe this layup de-bonded from the skin. I think that you'll need to put some pull rivets in to hold that layup against the skin, as the bond has broken. There is a lot of vibration and I am not sure I would trust inadhesive to hold it down. You should be able to get some -3 counter-sunk rivets to sit flush, as the layup looks pretty thick. You can easily fill over them and won't see the rivets.

Larry

[rightrudder]

I like the rivet idea, but use some G-Loc epoxy too. It sets up with a little elasticity so it handles vibration well.

[jeffkersey]

Thanks for the tips guys... I hope I can get this stopped without too much effort...