I knew the skirts were going to cause me grief, but I was pretty happy with the way things were travelling until I worked out that the C059 attach flanges were way out of shape. The engineering drawings show the flanges are not parallel, which makes sense, but bending them rougly to match the drawing means they are too deep for the thickness of the plexi. They also reach too far into the cockpit, meaning the plexi would be under strain ... unacceptable.
I made a larger skirt first (the originals are too close to size to bother with). I then formed the initial lip on the top edge of the skirt on the sheet metal bender. I then bent the C059 flanges to more suitable profile and match drilled everything using a 0.063" template with holes at 1 1/4" spacing. I used washers between the C059 and the skirt to maintain the space for the plexi.
Unfortunately, this just isn't going to work unless I make a whole new C059 to better match the spacing between the plexi and the slider frame. My bender isn't long enough, so off to the metal bashers for some help !!
