Speaking of Model Airplane News, there's an article on making cowls from transparent bottles. I was about to try this but I thought it better to look around before I did. The pics looked good, so after a while of open-cockpit flying I set it all up but, of course there's a "but", the bottle was too big. So instead I attempted to make a canopy for a P-40 (including the rear windows) using a method similar, in a way.
1. Utilizing a solid plug, any material, (the same plug I was about to use for the bottle thing) temporailly or permanantly attach it to a board that is about 2-3" wider on all sides of the plug (plug bottom fuz side down), lay a piece of plastic sheeting over the whole thing and clip it in place tightly.
2. With a heatgun on high, start melting the plastic over the plug, the plastic will shrink, the only real problem is that the corners overlap, I tried to fix it, but before I ruined it I stopped-still looked alright though. The less important problem was that the plastic was too thin, it broke before it ever got in the air.
3. Once the plastic cools unclip it and remove it from the plug. Trim excess and add frame lines. If anyone else uses this idea let me know if you get the folds out of it, also if someone uses the bottle idea either. Thankyou.

brED