One of my canopy side rails (9A tip-up) doesn't match the curve of the fuselage well. I've fluted the bottom flange of the rail as best as I can, but it's apparently not enough of a flute relative to the thickness of the material because the flutes have made zero impact on the shape. Manually bending the part over my bench started to kink the flange, so I gave up on that as well. I know someone here has a trick to share. I thought about a shrinker, but it looks like most of them don't accept aluminum that is 1/16" thick (I know the better shrinkers do, but I don't want to spend $1k on a $50 part). Ideas? I think the issue with fluting is that the fluting pliers don't put an aggressive enough flute in such thick material. I don't know if there are other tools I can use or not.
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Fluting Thick Material
- Thread starter skelrad
- Start date
Stevea
Well Known Member
Here's what I fabricated....found in the 6/6A builders manual. It should be self explanatory on what to build, and how to use it.
I ended up putting 3 flutes along my canopy side rails, towards the back end. This gave the parts a tighter curve that matched bend in the fuselage longerons.
I ended up putting 3 flutes along my canopy side rails, towards the back end. This gave the parts a tighter curve that matched bend in the fuselage longerons.
