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Building Tips and technical articles. => Building techniques => Topic started by: steven yampolsky on May 22, 2012, 09:06:55 PM
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I am completely lost as to what it takes to make a canopy. I did some searching and people talk about PTG, acetate, ovens, vacuum, molds, master molds, little green men. Can someone give an intro to making canopies with pictures so that someone with my IQ can understand. :P
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yep - easy
make a mould that fits your airframe
get a 2 litre coke bottle - but the bottom off it
put the mould in there
pack it so its tight
use a heat gun to shrink the bottle over the mould
mark the bottom of the mould on the outside of the bottle to give you your cut line
cut the bottle off the mould
trim canopy to line
DONE
I've posted this before somewhere - once I find the link I'll put it here
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Pics
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more pics
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and more
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last ones
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I've tried doing that with Coke bottle material before, but not just by jamming a bunch of stuff in and heat-shrinking. This looks like it'll actually work, it's easy, and the bottles should be easy enough to find.
Thanks!
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get a 2 litre coke bottle - but the bottom off it
Good instructions, but there's a typo. It should be:
get a 2-litre coke bottle - bite the bottom off it
Hope this helps.
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or cut.......can't sneak any errors in here can I?
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I've tried doing that with Coke bottle material before, but not just by jamming a bunch of stuff in and heat-shrinking. This looks like it'll actually work, it's easy, and the bottles should be easy enough to find.
Thanks!
its super easy - the PET they make the bottles out of can shrink up to 30% so you can get some good shrinkage - and some ratehr tight curves if you need to....
one thing I didn't mention on the Talon Canopy pictured - the top of the bottle where the cap goes was used to pull the wrinkles out of the front that you can see in one of the pics - USE A GLOVE to hold it if you have to do that - it gets HOT.....ask me how I know!
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or cut.......can't sneak any errors in here can I?
Oh. Never mind.
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Not for nutt'n, but there are some brown plastic beer bottles float'n around out there and a lot of planes will have brown canopies ( HIC!)---LOUIE LL~ LL~ H^^ D>K
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Wynn,
I'm impressed. Kudos!
Charles
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Great looking canopy, simple and available to everybody, and cheap - I like it!
I wonder if you could wedge the form in place with a heavy duty balloon or maybe an old blood pressure cuff, or bike inner tube????
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Not to hijack the thread but Wynn,what plane are you making? Looks like nice work so far.
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That was my Talon - built a few years ago now....
this one.
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Great looking canopy, simple and available to everybody, and cheap - I like it!
I wonder if you could wedge the form in place with a heavy duty balloon or maybe an old blood pressure cuff, or bike inner tube????
the PET gets VERY hot when you shrink it - you might pop a balloon or cuff.
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Wynn, THANK YOU for the great step by step! You've cleared up my failures and pointed me toward success!! (I think.) If I don't succeed now I'll know I'm destined to buy standard canopies and not use unique shaped ones. Thanks again!!! #^ #^ #^ <= <=
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Did anyone else notice that the red tape strips formed canopy framing into the finished piece?
Very nice!
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Did anyone else notice that the red tape strips formed canopy framing into the finished piece?
Very nice!
thanks Lou. It worked a treat too.... I was a little dubious about the heat affecting the tape - but it was fine and make the framework just as I wanted i (apart from the very sharp angle of the front piece) I couldnt get the tape to go around a curve that small
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the PET gets VERY hot when you shrink it - you might pop a balloon or cuff.
Wynn, what does PET mean? (exact abbreviation, please?)
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Poly Ethylene Terephthalate n~
I found this video, sorry for the language, but the images are very self-explaining, after all, 1 image = 1000 words
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fuq6FwvY7gc
Marcus
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Wish I had seen this video when I was trying to do the canopy for the P-47. Went thru a few bottles of different sizes before I called it quits with the one on the plane.