Strankon

Well I finally did it, I've produced my very first fiberglass helicopter canopy. By following the tutorial on the CST website, I made a plug using a slightly modified plastic canopy, made a mold from that plug, and made a fiberglass canopy, Cool! I,ve even got a few people wanting to buy my
canopies.
here are a few pics.

Strankon

Here are a few more..

KC36330

[sm=thumbup.gif]

soarrich

My Feedback: (98)

I love it when a plan comes together![8D]
Cool.
Now make a joggle plate so you can make it a seamless canopy.

Strankon

Joggle plate???

js3

My Feedback: (3)

Yes, please do explain a "joggle plate".

soarrich

My Feedback: (98)

It's a plate about 1/8 inch thick that you lay on top of one half of the mold that over hangs the molds cavity by the thickness of the layup. You layup the two halves , trim them, then put some resin on the lip that you made, and join the pieces. Highend German sailplane fuses are made this way. There is a seam but you don't use seam tape like you would normally do.

From looking at you canopy though you might be able to do it all in one piece without a joggle plate and have a true seamless canopy. I had a cowl once that used a four part mold but it was all laid up with the molds together so the cowl was one piece. The cowl had lots of rocker-arm blisters that would have locked it in a one piece mold.

KC36330

with that mold and the back of the canopy being open you can lay it up as one piece with the molds bolted together then unbolt the mold and you've got a canopy that is seamless.

TeamSeacats

I didn't quite follow up to that post yet and I haven't had a chance to check out the operation of my joggle....but here's some detail on making a joggle.

http://www.teamseacats.com/index.php?s=joggle

Kevin Matney

My Feedback: (1)

With that big hole in the back of the mold just do a wet lap seam