Sliding Canopy Windshield

I dry fitted the windshield and it fits everywhere except on both sides there is a little gap between the aircraft skin and the shield (1/4 inch). Does anyone know how I could close the gap. I can close the gap by pressing on the plexiglass but don't know how I could hold it there.
Thanks

Same problem here, was thinking of just troweling in a thickened epoxy/micro balloon mixture to fill the gap.
Vic

I held mine down with some clips there just like at the front. You'll see a pulled rivet tail on the inside of the glare shield, but no big deal. If you do a search for this you'll see how it ends up looking for others who've gone this route.

If you have already drilled the plexi back edge to the roll bar, the shape is locked, all you can do is secure lower edge with alum tabs & fill gap with micro or proseal, do not try to force the gap closed as you will create a pressure point.

If you haven't drilled the plexi to the roll bar yet, you can continue to shape lower plexi edge a bit more in the area where the fuselage skin curves down the sharpest. The plexi will now wrap in closer & reduce the gap.

As a finishing touch, consider painting a 1" band around the inside edge of your plexi in flat black (similar to the w/shield edges in your car), this would hide the ugly backside visual of your fiberglass fairing.

Could the windshield be shaped using heat like we do with fiberglass

I had to get someone to help push the plexiglass down while I drilled the clips. Mine was particularly rigid. I used a lot of clips in that area.

Picture of clips riveted in:
http://www.aclog.com/rv-9a/images/Finish/6431fc33fb842c4dc04beabb517fba0627486_IMG_1483.jpg

Here is the windscreen gap I had:
http://www.aclog.com/rv-9a/images/Fuselage/1221cb99f78fc633662ff851b7e90e8421705_photo.jpg

Afterwards, I placed my patio heaters close to the windscreen and heated it up on both sides at the same time for about 20 minutes with hopes to relax the plexi some. Not sure that is a valid process because it seemed risky, but there was a great deal of stress on the sides. It all turned out okay and flies straight.

More Clips A/R

More clips. I've always used several more than plans to close the gap. Where the fastener is visible from the cockpit, I use a #4 screw from the inside; cut off the exposed thread after installation. Keep things tight here because the fairing gets rather thin and flat to meet with the canopy. Pressing in the bulge will also mean trimming forward the lower windshield edge to keep a straight joint parallel to the roll bar. There's always been a need for shimming washers to align canopy/windshield edge, sometimes as much as 1/4", particularly near the bottom. If you drilled already, drill and tap again. Everything gets covered with a fairing and the roll bar/windshield gap gooped, hiding your boo-boos. Canopy and windshield installation is a highly iterative process. Don't use heat. You run the risk of distorting the plexi.

John Siebold

I used lots of clips and glued it down, filled the gaps with Sikaflex. As far as seeing the ugly Fiberglas from the inside, I used some black epoxy die from Spruce to turn the WEST stuff black. It also turns the fiberglass and everything else black and it takes just a drop per batch! I should have painted the inside of the clips black before building the fairing, two of them are visable if you look.

Clips with Screws

alpinelakespilot2000 said:

I held mine down with some clips there just like at the front. You'll see a pulled rivet tail on the inside of the glare shield, but no big deal. If you do a search for this you'll see how it ends up looking for others who've gone this route.

Click to expand...

I also used a couple of clips on each side. But I used some stainless 4-40 machine screws with stainless acorn nuts on the inside to give a nicer appearance on the inside of the glare shield. Just a touch of locktite on the nuts to make sure they never come off.