Tip: Putting holes in plastic parts

[woodmanrog]

Here's a great tip given to me from another RV6A pilot. Instead of drilling stop-crack holes in your canopy, use a RED HOT piece of steel to melt the desired size hole. You could use a nail or some such but I used the SHANK part of a 1/16" drill bit held with a vise grip pliers. Heated it with a mapp torch till red hot and just "poked" a hole through the 1/8" plastic. Remove while still hot and then just remove the plastic burr with any sharp instrument after cooling.

 

[benbell4140]

From what I've been told the heat will cause stress points and the canopy will crack in time. I havnt tried but don't plan to either.

 

[RV6airplanePilot]

Tested 5 years ago

and no problem. Melting relieves stress and creates natural rounding. Further info: the canopy (slider) was in an accident last month and impact from the front roll bar area broke the canopy on the left side 20 x 16 inches which was less than 5 inches from a 10 inch lateral crack in center of canopy that was about 6 inches from the front. The crack was stopped with a red hot nail over 5 years ago. 3 years ago I welded the crack with WeldOn from Aircraft Spruce plexiglass repair kit. I was impressed that the crack repair did not fail. Just one data point, but striking!
Dale
RV6a 1555 hours & likely a retired aircraft