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Aft Canopy Skirt Sikaflex - Rivets??

R

rapid_ascent

Well Known Member
I'm finally at the point of being ready to attach my Aft Skirt to my canopy assembly using the Sika 295UV. Yesterday I got the side skirts attached. I still have a little bit of finish work on the Aft skirt piece but I'm wondering if I want/need to install the rivets that attach my fiberglass skirt to the C-660 side skirts. I'm not sure they are actually needed and I'm worried I might damage the fiberglass when I compress the rivets. Any comments on how others have done this would be appreciated.

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No need to use rivets in the rear skirt or on any part of the canopy or windshield....I used Siki Flex on my metal skirt about 12 years or so ago when building.....it has all held up perfectly in place for 500 +hrs.
 
Triumph1974 said:
No need to use rivets in the rear skirt or on any part of the canopy or windshield....I used Siki Flex on my metal skirt about 12 years or so ago when building.....it has all held up perfectly in place for 500 +hrs.
Click to expand...
same on my RV-9 slider, only hole in the entire canopy is for the top latch. One piece fiberglass skirt all the way around and held in with Sikaflex.
 
one piece fibreglass skirt on my 9 slider, one hole in canopy for handle, also one piece windshield fairing all bonded with sikka.
 

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Sorry. Couldn't resist.
I know someone who did it too.
One piece skirt, one hole. Sika.
Kitplanes
Easy Slider
 
I did a one piece skirt and Sika too. But I put cheater rivets through the skirt into the frame and brace. I did not want to deal with flex in flight or anything coming off. The plexi has three holes; one for the latch and two for a handle top center aft.

We will hopefully see how it works in flight in a couple months...
 
I Sikad the skirt but I also installed the lower rivets into the side skirts. No issues. I think you can't go wrong either way.
 
I'm getting ready to bond my canopy to the frame using Sikaflex and am seeing a few options for the side skirts:
  1. Use the C-660 side skirts as mentioned in the plans, bonding to the canopy and riveting to the canopy frame through C-759. The cons to this are that there's not much Sika thickness for expansion/contraction and the difficulty in form fitting C-660 to the fuselage.
  2. Trim the top inch and bottom inch off C-660 and just use the rows of holes that attach it to the canopy frame and the C-791 Canopy Skirt Brace. Then fiberglass over it, bonding the fiberglass to the canopy and forming it nicely to the fuselage.
  3. Don't install C-660 at all and just fabricate and bond a fiberglass skirt to the canopy and to the C-791 Canopy Skirt Brace.
Which do/did folks prefer?

Thanks!
Russ
 
It wasn't that hard to rivet and with sika underneath. It might look slightly cleaner with out rivets, but then you'll need to figure out how to keep it in the correct position while the adhesive is setting. I glued some pieces of 1/16" o-ring in place before adding the Sika bead to create that small gap for the adhesive. I think I got the o-ring material from Mcmaster.
 
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