Windshield page 3

Once the flange was formed on the fairing, it matched the angle of the windshield and boot cowl at the top center, but still did not wrap around the windshield and did not lay down around the curve of the boot cowl.  To accomplish this, the old trusty shrinker/stretcher came from under the workbench and was put into operation:

The flange that lays on the boot cowl is being stretched to make the fairing wrap around the windshield.  As a bonus, this operation also causes the fairing to start curving and fitting the curve of the boot cowl.   Of course like most of these custom made, one-off parts, it is a series of repeated test fittings, stretch it some more, test fitting, over and over until it fit's.

Here is one of the earlier test fit's:

It's just starting to wrap around the windshield now but still needs to be stretched some more.  it's sticking out on the sides where it should meet the forward edge of the door frame area. The curve around the windshield is a little tighter there and the stretching was more concentrated in those areas.

We (mostly Mickey) kept at it until the fairing wrapped around the windshield and formed to lay flat on the boot cowl.  At a couple of points the flange angle was a bit too sharpe so it had to be un-bent a bit to lay down nicely on the windshield and boot cowl.  This 3003 aluminum is easy to form so unbending it a bit was easily accomplished with a plastic mallet.

Once we had a fairly nice fit, the fairing was pushed down firmly against the windshield and boot cowl and then drilled and clecoed with 2" spacing.  

We found a few areas where the fairing was gapping slightly away from the windshield.  To fix those areas, the shrinker was used.  The area to be shrunk was marked, the fairing was removed and some shrinking was done.:

This was remarkable effective and with a little tweaking, the fairing fit tight against the windshield and boot cowl.  Note in the picture above how the flange is sharper at the front-center and gradually diminishes to almost flat on the sides of the windshield

The aluminum fairing still has just a bit of spring-back and has to be pressed into place to make it fit.  To relieve the stresses, we went over the entire length of the flange, lightly tapping it with a hammer and wood block paying attention to the area right adjacent to the bend:

You can see in the above picture how nice the fit is between the fairing and the windshield.  After stress relieving, the fairing almost lays in place without any pressure applied to it.

Here is the completed fairing at this point, fitting like a glove:

The marks left by the shrinker/stretcher will be mostly sanded out and the primer will be built up a bit and then sanded smooth before painting.  

Personal note:  Making this aluminum fairing was not easy.  I had the benefit of Mickey Whittenburg's years of metal forming experience and Mickey did most of the work (although I helped and learned a lot as we went). If you are not fairly proficient with metal forming, I would not recommend going this route. Just make it out of fiberglass like everyone else is doing. However, if you can make it out of aluminum, it is something to be proud of and is probably a bit lighter.

A 1" x 1" piece of angle must be installed behind the windshield to prevent it from moving inward when under wind loads.  To make this, I used some of the 3003 aluminum.  Using what I learned from Mickey about metal forming, I stretched one leg of the angle and shrunk the other one until it fit nice and snug inside the windshield and the boot cowl. The angle was pressed firmly in place and marked for location.

The windshield was removed and the angle was positioned on the marks, then drilled in place. For the picture above, it was clecoed from the bottom so the windshield could be re-installed.

Click here to go to Windshield page 4