tkatc

tkatc

Well Known Member
Lots of talk of canopies lately. Anyway, I have a Todd's canopy and I'm about to order the finish kit before the price increase. I hear that Van's skirt does not fit a Todd's canopy very well. Some say to delete Van's skirt and just fabricate your own as it will fit the canopy better.

I have never done any glass before, so would I be better modifying Van's ill fitting skirt or starting from scratch?

If fabricating my own, how is this done?

Pictures please!
 
Adjusting the skirt for Todd

I'm not sure I can give you a quick answer to this one. I cracked my Van's canopy and replaced it with a Todd's canopy. The skirt didn't fit well at all. I ended up cutting off the upper flange that fits to the canopy and cutting off the rear 1/4 or so, that fit neither the canopy nor the fuselage. Using the techniques described by Dan Horton in the fiberglass section, I laid up the areas that needed replacement. There was significant work involved but it came out pretty well.

Read all of Dan's instructions and then give it a try. Fiberglass is very forgiving. If you make an error, just cut it off or sand it down and do it over. I started this project with zero experience with fiberglass and developed some really useful skills. Despite the dust, it is pretty fun to make stuff.

Regards,

Michael Wynn
RV 8 Finishing
San Ramon, CA
 
I hear that Van's skirt does not fit a Todd's canopy very well.
Click to expand...

In general the skirt is a challenge to fit. It doesn't matter if you are using Van's or Todd's canopy. I have a Todd's canopy and with some patience was able to get a very nice fit. There are plenty of good tips in the archive about placement and fitting of the skirt.

Unless you have a burning desire to learn how to build fiberglass parts I would avoid building one from scratch. Work with Van's skirt and modify as necessary to get the fit desired.
 
drill_and_buck said:
In general the skirt is a challenge to fit. It doesn't matter if you are using Van's or Todd's canopy. I have a Todd's canopy and with some patience was able to get a very nice fit. There are plenty of good tips in the archive about placement and fitting of the skirt.

Unless you have a burning desire to learn how to build fiberglass parts I would avoid building one from scratch. Work with Van's skirt and modify as necessary to get the fit desired.
Click to expand...

I'm about to start that process. Care to give us newbies a bit of a run down on how you made it happen?
 
Most Challenge

Without a doubt the canopy/shirt is the most difficult and challenging sub section of an RV-8. I spent from June to December just working on it and I finally just said "it's good enough" or I would still be refining and tweaking to this day. Buy the skirt. Follow the instructions and read all the threads and builders logs about the subject. It will look a mess for a while, but with patience and effort you can make it look and perform good. After building a whole airplane it should be looked on as a near final gate to walk through.
Best of luck, Bill of Georgia RV-8A 'Bluebird' N288WP 96 hrs
 
I can't comment on how well the stock skirt will fit the Van's canopy, but I can tell you that having built a skirt from scratch for the -3, it isn't hard - but modifying an existing skirt would be a lot easier. If nothing else, you can use the large broad pieces as it and only have to blend in transitions - it will end up a lot lighter if you are a fiberglass novice.

So if it were me, I'd buy Van's skirt and use it as a baseline, knowing I'd have to do some mods.
 
Rv8 skirt

I built my 8a with Todd's canopy and Vans skirt it was a bear but in my opinion better than building from scratch.
I had lots of fiberglass problems stemming from not knowing any better, both skirts and tips were "stored" in hot conditions for several years and I didn't store them properly (who knew) I actually had to throw the tips away and get new ones, they were warped so bad they could not be repaired. The proper way to store the tips according to Vans is to hang from a pencil like hook on wall tip down open toward wall, keep from getting too hot.
Ex patco lax
 
Skirts

I made my own to fit the Todd's canopy . I was no harder to fabricate than the windscreen fairing that You Have To Build . Also saved $500 deleting them from my final order .
Tom
 
Van's skirts

I did use the Van's canopy and skirts. Since the skirts did not fit well to the canopy frame, i had to modify them. Here's the way i did it:

1. Place them (as good as psossible) with canopy frame in closed position
2. Mark sections where they don't fit
3. Cut them into pieces along the markings
4. Put a separation layer onto airframe (i.e. PE-foil will do)
5. Tape skirt pieces in place and mold them together
6. After epoxy has cured remove the skirt and fill gaps on the backside with a mixture of epoxy and microballoons
7. Sand until they fit perfectly to your airframe

Markus
 
I used the vans and modified for Todd's canopy. I had never touched fiberglass before. Learned from watching YouTube videos.

Sorry for the long photo post, hopefully this will help others.

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Fiberglass: It looks HORRIBLE until it doesn't.

This was the most time consuming portion of my build
 
This was the most time consuming portion of my build
Click to expand...

Why is it every piece I get to at this point in the build is the most time consuming or most frustrating or most expensive part? Everyone said once you cut the canopy and get it bonded...it's all downhill from there. Now that the sikaflex is curing, I'm looking at the skirt with question marks hovering around my head and I read the above. You people....

Next will be firewall forward which I'm sure will make me pull my hair out. Then the cowling, which I'm certain will put me in a psych ward somewhere and lets not forget landing gear, hanging wings, wingtips, control surfaces etc. I miss the days of pounding rivets and taking two pieces of metal to make one.

I think I'll head down to the hanger and melt some more lead into Bob's IO-375 sump, that always cheers me up. Lighter than my angle valve is it? Not bloody likely.

Thanks for the writeup Rhino, that will help. Thanks to Katie as well for the link.
 
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I also had to significantly modify Van's skirt to fit my Todd's canopy. I pretty much cut of the rear third on both sides and layed up new glass. Spent most of the summer on it; most of that trying to get it smooth. But, I had never done any fiberglass work up until that point. Part of me enjoyed it. Another part of me got very frustrated. I have to say modifying the existing canopy was easier than starting from scratch. However, depending on how much I would save by leaving out the Van's skirt, I would consider doing it from scratch now that I have a bit more confidence in my skills.
 
Let's remember our "fiberglass 101" best practices when cutting skirts for fit.

Glass is spliced using a scarf joint, not a butt joint with splice plies on one side. The butt joint is (1) structurally weak, (2) creates a double thickness in the repair area, and (3) requires much more filler.

A scarf is easy. Just block sand a taper on the two edges and lay the splice plies into the depression. When cured, sand flush.

f4n0h0.jpg
 
I apologize up front...it's not a pleasure to be critical of any specific work. However, this work is on the front page and it's a good example of how not to do this task.

Glass tape is generally a poor choice for layup. Look close and you find woven edges, with one edge being even thicker than the other. The thick edge creates a void when another ply is laid over top of it. Filling the void requires a lot of epoxy (i.e. a very wet layup). The alternative is an air bubble. Even in a non-structural part the air void creates finishing trouble.

24wxdn7.jpg


The woven edges also lock the criss-crossed threads of the weave in relation to each other. If the threads can't shift a little the fabric doesn't conform to curves and shapes very well.

Last, a layup pieced together from many individual tape strips almost always results in a variety of thicknesses. So, the part requires a lot of filler, or sanding away a lot of the fiberglass fiber. Again, even for a non-structural part you're just making a lot of work.

This particular part seems to illustrate A Great Sin of composite construction....built-in delaminations and voids.

14tlz7a.jpg


I assume the goal was to overlay the base component. In this case the overlay could have easily been unbroken fabric plies instead of tape, resulting in no laps, no voids, even thickness, and much less finish work. The cut pattern would have been a large U-shape; like a dressmaker you merely cut a paper pattern to get started. I imagine ordinary 9oz plain weave would lay smoothly, and 8.9 oz 8-harness certainly would.

FWIW, I have still not used up the original rolls of glass tape I purchased from Wicks in the mid-90's.

Again, I apologize for singling out this particular example.
 
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Cost delta

So how much does a Todd's canopy cost (couldn't find it on his web site) and how much of a discount will Vans give you for removal of their canopy (if anybody knows)? I just ordered the finishing kit last week and might want to remove the canopy before it's too late (unless it's too late already).

Thanks,

Scott
 
I agree.

Not the way to do it. Like I said... I had NO clue how to do this stuff called fiberglass. Once I started sanding the voids became canyons and valleys. Yes they filled nicely.

This was an example of stage 1 in a learning process.;)

Thanks for the Diagrams Dan... I hope that I NEVER need to refer to them! NO more fiberglass for me :D

Regards,

Scott


DanH said:
I apologize up front...it's not a pleasure to be critical of any specific work. However, this work is on the front page and it's a good example of how not to do this task.

Glass tape is generally a poor choice for layup. Look close and you find woven edges, with one edge being even thicker than the other. The thick edge creates a void when another ply is laid over top of it. Filling the void requires a lot of epoxy (i.e. a very wet layup). The alternative is an air bubble. Even in a non-structural part the air void creates finishing trouble.

24wxdn7.jpg


The woven edges also lock the criss-crossed threads of the weave in relation to each other. If the threads can't shift a little the fabric doesn't conform to curves and shapes very well.

Last, a layup pieced together from many individual tape strips almost always results in a variety of thicknesses. So, the part requires a lot of filler, or sanding away a lot of the fiberglass fiber. Again, even for a non-structural part you're just making a lot of work.

This particular part seems to illustrate A Great Sin of composite construction....built-in delaminations and voids.

14tlz7a.jpg


I assume the goal was to overlay the base component. In this case the overlay could have easily been unbroken fabric plies instead of tape, resulting in no laps, no voids, even thickness, and much less finish work. The cut pattern would have been a large U-shape; like a dressmaker you merely cut a paper pattern to get started. I imagine ordinary 9oz plain weave would lay smoothly, and 8.9 oz 8-harness certainly would.

FWIW, I have still not used up the original rolls of glass tape I purchased from Wicks in the mid-90's.

Again, I apologize for singling out this particular example.
Click to expand...
 
I don't exaxtly recall the prices when I bought mine (probably about 5 years ago). But I do recall saving $100-200 and getting a thicker, guranteed canopy by going the Todd's. Oh, I also got a free hat! :)
 
apatti said:
I don't exaxtly recall the prices when I bought mine (probably about 5 years ago). But I do recall saving $100-200 and getting a thicker, guranteed canopy by going the Todd's. Oh, I also got a free hat! :)
Click to expand...

I didn't get no hat!!

My Todd's cost me $550 after shipping. I ordered my finish kit last week from Van's and deleted the canopy. Not sure what my credit will be yet.
 
Ok, Vans will give me a $490.00 credit if I remove the canopy from the finishing kit order; is the Todd's canopy that much better? I'll I know is it is a bit thicker. Can you get it with the smoked gray tint? What other advantages are there? It's almost a wash cost wise ($60.00).
 
It wouldn't be just a $60 difference for me. You didn't factor in shipping. I am already paying to ship the finish kit, so I suppose if I DID order the canopy it would add to the cost...probably $60. So I suppose it is a wash.

Todd says the canopies are lightly tinted but not so dark they can't be used for night flying.
 
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Spruce sells a Todd's canopy for the RV-4 at $455. for clear,
tinted is a little more. price includes crating
shipping is approx $70-100
 
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