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38-25 Fairing Outline & Glareshield

Fairing Outline

The “aft fairing line” is lightly scribed onto the canopy 7/8″ aft of the front edge. Since I don’t have any calipers, I made the equivalent from a compass & pencil : )

Protecting the canopy area aft of the “aft fairing line” with a double layer of quality electrical tape proved harder than it seems … it was very difficult to see the lightly scribed line!

I used Scotch Super 3M Vinyl Electrical Tape, which is only available in black.

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A little 2″ template is used to work out the position of the “forward fairing line”.

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Then side templates are cut from a sheet supplied in the finish kit.

These are positioned using the C-01418 Canopy Skin as a datum, and provide the “forward fairing line” position at the edges.

The snag is … you can’t align the both edges of the templates at the same time.

So I first aligned the front, which then matched my marked line perfectly …

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… and then aligned the bottom to judge the very edge line.

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Then more Scotch Super 3M Vinyl Electrical Tape to mark the “forward fairing line”.

The manual gets you to apply a double layer of tape, so I used white vinyl tape over the black. I think this may be useful when sanding the fibreglass, since this will be tinted black.

I tested the 3M tape on some scrap Plexi to check if the adhesive caused any issues … after a week no problems.

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At the edges the Plexiglass is shaped so that the 2″ template can reach the skin without rocking.

I achieved this using the furniture scraper and a sanding block.

Glareshield

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Having marked the line where the canopy meets the Canopy Skin, it was time to paint the glare shield.

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Lots of masking up to protect the existing paintwork.

I decided to use a specialist anti-reflective paint … I’ve seen it used on glider glare shields to good effect.

It’s called NEXTEL Suede Coating 3101, and is available in various colours. This is “S139 Dark Black” : )

Interestingly, it’s not quite as black as “90FH Black”??

I don’t think we’ll see any reflections from this … it’s as matt as a matt thing, only matter!

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2 comments on 38-25 Fairing Outline & Glareshield
  1. Mike Healey

    Hi Steve, how scratch resistant is the Nextel paint?

  2. Steve

    Hi Mike

    I did a test piece and it seems very good. I’m pretty sure it’d stand the occasional map slid onto it if that’s what you’re wondering.

    Cheers

    Steve

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