I am currently putting the door handles and closure pins into the doors and have noticed that the sections constructed for the handles are different left side to right side.
They are in different positions relative to the bottom and front door channels.
Did anyone else have this issue? I am concerned I have an old door mold and a new door mold. I have an issue with one of the doors not quite mating correctly, not major, however, maybe this is because of differing halves.
Has anyone else noticed this?
Andrew,
Pictures illustrating the issue would certainly help us understand better.
If your doors don't fit exactly right, welcome to the club of the RV-10 builders. I don't think any of them fit perfectly. As far as there being two molds it's possible. Geoff Combs has been able to determine that there are two different molds for the pink cabin covers that have been used in production. The same could be true for the doors, but I don't think that is the cause of your problem.
The are a few things that come to mind that could be causing your fit issues.
When you mated the two halves and epoxied them together, was there appropriate weights to adhere to the contour of the cabin cover while the epoxied set?
When you start trimming the doors, if you let the doors slip a bit, then the contour of the curve of the door will be off from the cabin cover. (I had one door like this due to a build partner providing inaccurate information. I quickly learned after this to personally validate measurements when it comes to major cuts)
The last area that seems to be prevalent is that for some reason Vans sands a flat spot on each side of the rear door frame. Speculation is that is to get the cabin cover to fit in a smaller crate. I can't imagine the would make the cabin cover mold like the intentionally.
To fix the combination of the second issue with the last one, I had to apply many layers of fiberglass to build up the door frames to match the contour of the doors. To be honest I was pretty intimidated about this step, but it turned out to be pretty easy.
Just apply some clear packing tape around the door edges and latch the door. You now have a guide to apply the fiberglass to the cabin cover. Using thin strips of glass, apply them to the door frm until you get a contour that is close to that of the door frame. You may have to use a technique that is highlighted for glossing int the front window. Since it is a curve, you may need to start with smaller length strips and build to longer strips to get the correct radius of the curve.
If I've totally missed the mark with my assumptions, post some photos to give us a better idea of your precise issue.
Bob
