[RVG8tor]

OK in a perfect world you make the big cut fasten the two halves and the gap in the Plexiglas between the windscreen and the canopy should be something close to the kerf of the blade used to cut the bubble in half. Well I cut mine and was not so stead, then when fitting the aft (canopy part) I move it forward a couple inches and made a new cut that I am much happier with. My problem is now the windscreen does not match up with the edge of the canopy. I want to make a new cut to the windscreen but then this will leave me with a fairly large gap between the two halves. The fiberglass fairing will cover up any unevenness but how important is the gap between the two halves. I am thinking I can build up the fairing as required to make the gap smaller and even across the face. The only issue I can see with a wider gap is water intrusion due to blowing wind when the plane is on the ground, in flight I think it would just run aft on the outside. I guess there could be some whistling noise in flight. I plan to do some type of weather striping to help seal for wind and water, not sure what is recommended.

It seems one can do wonders working with fiberglass in this situation, of course I have no experience with that yet! Any advice is welcomed.

 

[SHIPCHIEF]

The first fiberglass part seemed so hard, but got easier with each successive part. Posters on this forum have given excellent advice and I made better parts from the start because of them. Make a couple of fiberglass doo-dads before you tackle this one.
I'm hoping my canopy gap is small enough to avoid the fiberglass fairing, I SIKA'd my windshield and canopy on. I'm going to add weatherstripping and watch for canopy movement during run-up trials. If the canopy wiggles around too much, then I think the fiberglass fairing overlap to the canopy is useful to lock the canopy front to the windshield. I just hate the idea of that fairing seam dragging in the airstream at the largest volume of the airframe / wing. (area rule and all that)
At the Arlington airshow, I asked a builder about his canopy fairing, and how he did it.
He covered the windshield / canopy with tape and plastic first. Then laid up his plies of 'glass over that. After it cured, he popped it off and finished it on the bench, including paint. Then he bonded it on. Looked killer. You could cover a host of sins at the back of the windshield with a nice fiberglass fairing and some weatherstripping?

 

[Allan Stern]

Mike

When I built my 8A canopy, I too wished I only had a saw kerf gap between the forward windshield and the rear canopy. No such luck. I think I had something like a 3/4" gap between the two. It got covered by the fiberglass fairing. Only problem was that I had to fill the gap in with material and cover with tape so the fiberglass cloth did not sag too far into the gap. Believe it when you are told that the fiberglass does cover up a lot of things.

Good luck

Allan Stern "Toozicoot" 0-360,
Hartzell C/S, GRT HX
going to airport March