Canopy Installation, Part 4

Another cool idea that Van's came up with for the RV-12 is a nice, lightweight glareshield.  A bubble canopy and a complete glass panel on a sunny day can be a recipe for visibility issues of the instrumentation.  After seeing one installed on VAF.net, I had to have one.  I ordered it and was not disappointed.  As an added bonus, it appears to be finished in the exact same Sherwin Williams JetFlex Blue Black color of my interior.....so much so that I am not going to touch the nice exterior finish.  I did apply 3 coats of a nice flat black on the unfinished interior side of the glareshield.  I used Rustoleum's Painter's Touch 2X paint + primer rattle can, which is advertised as "also bonds to plastic!".  I was able to get a nice finish with that paint.  As I will document later, I also used it on the inside of the plexiglass canopy...but more about that at the proper time.  The photos below show the nice form and fit of the glareshield along the front canopy bow.

The glareshield will be fastened with the front canopy bow's #6 countersunk screws, washers and nuts, which will also be holding the canopy in place.  I opted to NOT use rivets.

 Next up on the canopy install was the manufacture and installation of the canopy guide blocks.  In another post on VAF, an RV-12 builder remarked that he had shaped (rounded corners, edges) his guide blocks with his router.  As it sounded like a good idea, I broke out my home brewed router table rig and set about to finish-shaping my guide blocks.

Scary tool that router with its bit turning at the "speed of heat" about 1/4 inch from one's digits!

In the end, I finished with all digits still attached and two nicely shaped canopy guide blocks.

Below is clearer picture of my rig with the set up I used to do the job.

The guide blocks were used to guide a tap to thread the holes that were drilled into the roll bar.  After tapping the holes and then cleaning up, the guide blocks were fastened to the roll bar.

I will have to plead ignorance at this point and say that I don't remember if I have previously mentioned my use of the Viking Shield.  The shield is simply a pre-made gelcoated, fiberglass trim piece that Viking Aircraft Engines sells to alleviate the RV-12 builder of that task beginning on page 34-14 of the builder's manual.  I opted to purchase one.

To be honest, I was disappointed with the lack of rigidity of the trim piece as it probably has only 2 layers of glass plus the gelcoat.  I was impressed with the pristine gelcoat finish which would completely eliminate any finish work getting the fiberglass part to the paint -ready stage.

I was determined to give this piece a fair shake (as opposed to just doing the prescribed manual layup) so my first order of business was to attempt to bring it up to my standards of at least 4 layers of glass.  Pictured below are a few shots of the supplemental glassing process.  I will confess to the fact that I simply used some cheap polyester resin and some 6 ounce glass cloth purchased from the local auto repair shop.  I did squeegee as much of the excess resin from the lay up as possible to keep it light.  The final trimmed piece of which I don't yet have a picture turned out nice.  The modified fairing's rigidity is now what I wanted it to be.

The next step in the process involved the trimming of the two blocks of canopy foam....and the subsequent bonding to the forward canopy frame.  Below is a picture of the trimmed foam block, nearly ready for bonding to the canopy frame.

Checking for fit of the foam block on the canopy frame - looks acceptable.

For bonding the canopy foam to the frame, I opted to use an epoxy resin in lieu of the low-tech polyester resin.  The Gflex epoxy resin is a West System product that I purchased at our local West Marine store.  Next to it is the 1 pound bag of flox (chopped cotton fibers) purchased from Aircraft Spruce.  The epoxy resin mixes at a 1:1 ratio, and the digital scale makes it a no-brainer of a process.  The builder's manual states to add enough flox "until the mixture is just thick enough that it won't pour when the mixing cup is tipped."  Armed with that info, I added small increments of flox to the resin mixture until it seemed to be thick enough....like a thin paste.

 After the canopy foam blocks were coated with the epoxy/flox mixture, it was time to let the duct tape do its thing and hold in place until the next day.  Next up will be the sanding/contouring of the foam.