Today I completed the initial sanding of the windshield external retainer. Because I had layed up the fiberglass in one big chunck (all 10 layers at once) I ended up with a number of imperfections I'll need to address.
After this initial sanding I will be filling all depressions and applying resin with chop (fiberglass pieces) for added strength. Once I have filled all imperfections and achieved a constant thickness across the retainer, then I will use a filler to eliminate the small pin holes that would be visible after painting.
For the internal retainers, I bent three pieces of 0.032" aluminum with 1" legs and 6" long. My initial bend was to 110 degrees but I'm not sure that will be enough for my windshield. However, first I will need to shrink the horizontal leg to make the retainers conform to the windshield contour.
I will say that I've not ruled out making this internal retainer out of fiberglass, time will tell.
Initial sanding of winshield external retainer
Internal windshield retainers prior to shrinking to contour
