Down in the Weeds Sika Question

[pvalovich]

I used Sika to glue the canopy and skirts of my -8A and am quite pleased with the results. I pre-painted the canopy frame flat black so the Sika blends in. I'm now getting ready to glue the windscreen to the rollbar.

Rollbar is painted grey. I intended to leave it grey but have been having doubts on my ability to produce a good looking transition line between the black Sika and the grey rollbar. I admit to be artistically challenged when trying to achieve reasonable painting quality. Alternative is to carefully mask off the cockpit interior and paint the rollbar black. If I go that way I want to paint it before Sika is applied.

Not the most earthshaking builder question I've seen on this forum, but Im wondering what other Sika users have done.

[DGlaeser]

I didn't do a slider, but on my tip-up I masked areas where Sika was applied so that I could apply/smear as needed and then pull off the masking tape and voila! a nice clean line exactly where I wanted it.
I did lots of masking because Sika is second only to ProSeal when it comes to making a mess (for me anyway)

[Sparky]

I had the same concern, so I ordered the roll bar and slider canopy frame unfinished from Van's. After fitting everything, but before glueing the canopy, I had them powdercoated gloss black. The powdercoat matches the SIKA well enough that the transition lines are no issue.

[IowaRV9Dreamer]

I painted my slider frame hammered black (rustoleum) and the rollbar and it's brace flat black (also rustoleum). My theory was that to minimize reflections on the rollbar area.

I've sika'd the slider frame (cosmetically it looks awesome) and will do the windscreen "soon".

BTW - I wouldn't hesitate to remove the rollbar and paint it off the airplane. Only 4 nuts

[Guy Prevost]

I just taped a neat line off on my roll bar. The bulk of the roll bar is the factory powder coat, but the top is Sika primer and Sika.

[Lars]

I haven't done the windshield, but I left the canopy frame gray and masked carefully to get straight lines. That worked out well, and I find the sharp transition to look ok (I know, totally subjective).

My fillets, on the other hand, are another story. Someone else here posted about their filleting skills with Sika as being a 1.2 on a scale of 1 to 10. In that case mine are somewhere around 0.7. I might be able to make it better by applying some more Sika over the worst areas, but every time I get the urge to do something about it I still very still until the feeling goes away. Too much risk of making it even worse.

I saw a couple of Sika'd canopies at OSH this year that were done by true masters of the filleting art. One was done with frame/roll bar tubes all black, the other on a frame with what appeared to be the OEM gray powder coat. I concluded that the quality of the fillet is more important than the color transition.

[mlwynn]

I left my canopy frame power coated gray and masked carefully. It is pretty close to a perfect straight line. I don't really think you will have too much trouble with this, either way.

The nice thing about filets are that the process is very forgiving. If something is too high, dig it out and re-do it. Once the sika is all set up, you can cut out bad spots with a razor or xacto. Putting a new, smooth fillet is pretty easy. Make sure you mask the powder coat carefully. You can easily remove excess sika from the plexiglass. Getting it off the powdercoat is another matter.

Regards,

MIchael Wynn
RV 8 Finishing
San Ramon, CA

[SHIPCHIEF]

Mine's ugly. I did it a long time ago, before I came to this list and learned a few techniques about smoothing fillets. Inside the windshield and roll bar are the worst, and will be the hardest to ever fix.
The best part for me was using electrical tape for the sika edge, and pull it up as soon as you can after smoothing the SIKA into place. The thin SIKA sets up pretty fast.
Done right, the tape edge job will look totally pro. My fiberglass skirt seams over the plexi canopy were very satisfying.