Please share some of your slick cowl installations. I have a real nice project coming up that I don't want to ruin with an ugly cowl mounting job. I don't particularly care for screw heads sticking out of the cowl all over but that's how I've done a couple.

I have tried many ways, but I keep coming back to using nylon bolts (8-32 for most planes, 10-32 for the big ones). I paint the heads of the bolts so that they don't look too bad.

I like to make a plywood ring and glue it around the inside opening to give you a small flange. Before you glue it you can center it on your firewall and drill your holes. I also drill two 1/16” dowel-pin holes to hold the cowl in place while you fumble with the screws. Then with a long ball allen head screwdriver you insert the screws through the engine cowl openings and open bottom section. This way nothing but a seam is visible from the outside.

AV8TOR, I like that idea. It sounds like it could be a little tedious but well worth it in the appearance department. My project is a 1/3 scale Pitts Special ARF. This will be my biggest project to date and I want to make it as sharp as possible because I know it will get a lot of close looks at the flight line. Thanks for the tip.

I use button head screws, with the low-profile rounded top, allen head. Usually #4's are plenty to hold most any of them. The button heads give sort of scale look, rivet like.

Use a sliver of fuel tubing between the cowl and the mounting point to absorb some of the vibration.

Glue CA hinges to the inside of the cowl where you drill through. This will strengthen the area.

BTW, neither of these were my idea but I thought they were good ideas.
Steve

I use allan head screws with a fiber washer. I tape the cowl into position and drill all holes 1/16". I then remove cowl and drill out the fuse the same size as the inner yellow rod used in the nyrod kits. Rough up the outer surface of the nyrod with some 80 grit sandpaper. cut to 3/4" lengths as many as you need. Use some slow setting epoxy and install them flush into the holes you made into the fuse.
This way the screws have something to bite into and they never back out. Works great on all my gassers.
ttyl

use nylon 4-40 screws tapped into the wood underneath (just CA the wood after tapping). Then dye the screws using RIT dye. At 10 ft the screws are invisible. Did this on my .60 extra for the cowling and canopy,,, can you see the screws???

Would have to agree with radman, The inner tube on nyrod glued into holes on your mounts is the way to go!!

Craig

Hi,
Similarly to AV8TOR I glue a 6mm plywood flange to front of firewall. This holds cowl very well in place. To mount the cowl I laminate two pieces (one for each side of fuse if its flat obvoiusly) of duraluminium L-shaped bar (1mm wall thickness & 80-100mm long). They go under the flange. Cowl in mounting area is reinforced from inside with two stripes of thinn 0,1mm brass laminated under fiberglass stripes. Put cowl in place and drill through reinforced places 4 holes for self tapping screws.
I use this method in all my 1/4 scale aerobats.