I decided to take a stab at making an aluminum windscreen fairing instead of using fiberglass. It's still a work in progress, but I'm very pleased with the results so far.
I generally followed the method detailed in the June 1997 RVator article, plus Andy Crabtree's thread, and figured it out as I went. Honestly I was shocked at how well it turned out - my "throwaway" test pieces ended up being nearly perfect the first time. Pretty surprising considering the kinds of three-dimensional compound bends involved. And no sanding required!
I still need to trim them to the final size and make a cover strip to go over the top of the rollbar, but that should be fairly straightforward. My plan is to blind-rivet the fairing pieces to the fuselage, and seal everything up with either Sika or proseal (probably the former, but I haven't decided yet).
Full writeup here: http://www.rv7blog.com/2021/04/10/aluminum-windscreen-fairing/
I generally followed the method detailed in the June 1997 RVator article, plus Andy Crabtree's thread, and figured it out as I went. Honestly I was shocked at how well it turned out - my "throwaway" test pieces ended up being nearly perfect the first time. Pretty surprising considering the kinds of three-dimensional compound bends involved. And no sanding required!
I still need to trim them to the final size and make a cover strip to go over the top of the rollbar, but that should be fairly straightforward. My plan is to blind-rivet the fairing pieces to the fuselage, and seal everything up with either Sika or proseal (probably the former, but I haven't decided yet).
Full writeup here: http://www.rv7blog.com/2021/04/10/aluminum-windscreen-fairing/
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