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Dave's RV-7A Builder's Log
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Date:  8-7-2016
Number of Hours:  4.50
Manual Reference:  
Brief Description:  Windscreen attachment

I started this morning by cutting some decorative metal screen to fit the vent holes in the glareshield. After I fit the windscreen I will sand, prime and paint the glareshield flat black before I install the windscreen permanently. Since the vents will be essentially inaccessible once the windscreen goes on, I wanted to make sure I had something that looked decent and this screen looks pretty good in my opinion. Hopefully it serves the purpose…time will tell.

After finishing that project, I began the process of fitting the windscreen in order to get it drilled. I started by installing the spacers I made yesterday, and with those in place the transition between windscreen and canopy was pretty good. I did find that the side skirts were causing me some challenges, so after about an hour of fussing with the fit, I removed them and things started to get a little easier. The builder’s manual doesn’t give any sort of guidance on the amount of space between the aft edge of the windscreen plexiglass and the forward edge of the canopy plexiglass, but since there will be about a ½” lip from the windscreen fairing, I decided to try to keep it less than about 1/8”. This required a fair amount of sanding with 60 grit paper…lots of “off the frame, sand, back on the frame, check, back off the frame, sand, etc”, but I finally got the fit about where I wanted it.

After securely taping the windscreen in place, I set about drilling with a #40 bit and within about an hour, the job was done. Lots more to do with this, but after pulling the windscreen off one more time and deburring the holes, I reattached it and called it a day. By the way, it does look like I’ll need to remake the side skirts as raising the frame by ¼”caused a 1/8” gap at the forward edge—since this will be very visible, I decided to bite the bullet and do it again. Nothing that time and money won’t fix…
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Vent screens installed

Vent screens installed

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Windscreen ready for drilling

Windscreen ready for drilling

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Fitted and drilled

Fitted and drilled

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