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Windshields & Canopy

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In Remembrance 7/14/20200
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<DIV ="BBquote">
A question from Jerry, Taken from building the pointy end..
How did you make those faceted windshields ? I've been looking all over for plans/ideas on how to go about doing it. Your own design ?


Hi Jerry.
Thanks for the kind words.
As to the windshields;
My own design, so I don't know how theydirect the windin the 150MPH slip stream :0)
Will I look like the Aflac duck in the race car on the TV advert ,I don't know!


I started out with cardboard pieces and duct tape to get the general shape and then, with the aluminum combings in place I trimmed the cardboard to fit.
I bent the chromoly strips on the break to match the cardboard corners.
Now I have three sheets of carboard (front and two sides) with what I believeare the correct angles.


Now I have a stiff cardboard shape.
I carfuly clamped the bent steel strips to the carboard and started tack welding with the tig. I don't think gas welding can be done. You will deform the angled strips and you will insinerate the carboard template. With the tig, you are sacrificing the cardboard at the corners, but it can be done.


I placed the mockup onto thecombing and a little reshaping with a grinder had to be done. And then with a sharpie marker lined out the place where the carboard meets the aluminum.
With a transparent film (overhead projector film) I placed three of these over the combing (overlapping) so I couldre-trace the sharpie markings.
I now know where the three uprights touch the aluminum.
From this, I can make the template of the flange that will be bolted to the combing.
Cut the transparent template and mark the shape on some flat chromoly sheet and then cut this on the band saw.


Now comes the other hard part.
Go back to the combing and apply the transparent film template to the previously indexed lines.
Redraw the perimiter of the template on the aluminum combing.
With the sawn chromoly strips, place these on the line drawings and tape down firmly. This is the bolting base to the windshield.
Place your windshield on top of the taped down bolting base.
The windshield is flexible at this point and you need to position it equally on top of the base strips.
Strap the windshield down firmly with duct tape as you do not want it to move around when you tack weld.
A couple of strategic tack welds and you can remove it for final wilding, in the vice are something else that can hold it.


Now the bad side to this procedure.
You are using the aluminum combing as a form, a support, the shape on which the windshield will finally rest on.
As you tack weld the windscreen to the bolting base, the heat screws up the aluminum underneath. So' do not do this on the combing that you will finaly use on the aircraft. You probably have had an earlier attempt at the combings.
Use these scrap combings to form and tack weld.


I think I am getting a little long winded with my explanation right now.
Today, I am going on a business trip. When I return, I will take close up pictures of the windshields and post them.


Cheers. Eric.
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Below are the pictures of thewindshields
20080801_104057_skybolt_windshi.JPG



20080801_104242_skybolt_windshi.JPG






 

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