Engine Cowling
 

Anyone have any good tips on glue cowling parts together ( 2 halves ) so that they look like one? Any fillers or special glues you use?

RE: Engine Cowling
 

I glue the two halves together with medium CA then glue a strip of either plastic or fiberglass to the inside of the cowl along the entire joint. Once that's in place, sand it smooth. A very small amount of filler may be needed if there is a slight gap or mismatch which cannot be sanded out. I like the Squadron brand of filler (I use the white) as it's compatible with almost all paints.

John

RE: Engine Cowling
 

I've found that bondo works well on abs parts such as cowls and pants.

RE: Engine Cowling
 

Thanks for the tip on the inside. The outside I will use Bondo. Pretty clean!

RE: Engine Cowling
 

I take fiber glass cloth cut in strips and epoxy it to the inside along the seam for straigth. Use the CA glue method advised earlier. Then fiber glass the inside.
NEDYOB

RE: Engine Cowling
 

I hold together with masking tape on the out side, then glass the join on the inside. Fill any gaps then sand smooth.

Alternatively buy an aftermarket replacement that comes complete.

RE: Engine Cowling
 

The easiest thing to do is buy the aftermarket cowl. I usually fiberglass the entire inside of the cowl using slow-drying epoxy - not ca. The seams can be filled with anything that will stick to the plastic and has about the same hardness. Auto-body filler is the best choice, but you can also use medium CA to fill the seam. A lot of plastic modelers now use medium CA as a seam filler between fuselage halves or wing halves and it works very well.

RE: Engine Cowling
 

I use acetone to join plastic cowl pieces. just make sure you use a thin strip of plastic on the inside over the joint. make the strip 1/4 to 1/3 inch wide. use the excess from trimming the cowl, or buy some plastic strips. take one cowl half and hold the strip on the inside with half of it extending past the edge of the cowl on the side where it joins the other half. let some acetone (a few drops) run down the joint. acetone effectively "welds" the plastic pieces together. now you have a cowl half with a lip on it to join to the other half. follow the same procedure to put the halves together. if you sand some scrap plastic and mix the dust with acetone you can create a filler that really bonds to the cowl. hopefully this gives you some ideas.

-Aaron