First, Build a Shed

[Meyer]

Looks good!!!

[efwd]

I guess I lucked out. I whacked off my piece all at once after laying it over the outside and marking it. When I installed it I found that the welds on the inside of the airframe kept me from sliding it back. So, I had to sand the windscreen a bit more to fit it correctly. As for the cross tube trimming, Brian got his much closer to the tube than I did but fortunately its coverd by the wing root cuff panel.

[Cherrybark]

I trimmed the windshield like a little old lady. First worked on getting the top part of the vertical sides trimmed so the rear of the windshield would rest even with the back edge of the skylight angle. These trims were along a line drawn from a point from 1/4" - 1/8" at the top of the vertical to a point about midway down the vertical part of the windshield. It took multiple cuts to finally line up with the skylight angle. When you're working on this, you'll notice there is a "curled lip" in the "glass" where the windshield touches the top of the vertical air frame section. At first I was tempted to trim this curl away during the initial fitting. Don't! When fitting the windshield, this curl neatly seals that area.

I wasn't trying to make the overall windshield fit during this skylight phase. Once the skylight angle was matched up, the top part of the vertical fit but the lower part of the windshield still need trimming. If you stood at the side of the airplane, the top of the windshield was in place but the lower section stuck out too far towards the nose. This is where I went into timid, little ol' lady mode and started cutting thin pie shaped pieces from the vertical edge. The point of the pie was the top corner of the vertical part of the windshield. This part fit and didn't need to have more material removed. The wide part of the pie removed 1/8" the later 1/16" from the bottom part of the vertical edge. When I was fitting the top part of the windshield, the cuts only went about half way down the vertical section of the windshield and the long, top to bottom line wasn't straight. The first long cut corrected this problem and the windshield fit much more neatly in place. After each pie was cut away, the windshield and front part of the boot cowl were installed. At first the rear of the boot cowl will not line up correctly with the air frame. When you start getting close with multiple pie shaped trims, you are certain to press the rear of the boot cowl and discover everything shifts into place. What you have likely done is shift the windshield forward to create a gap at the top of the vertical section and mess up the skylight angle. Just continue patiently taking away thin pie cuts and you'll eventually get a perfect fit. Don't get exasperated and decide a 1/4" cut will speed up the process. A 1/16" cut results in a more than 1/16" move of the boot cowl.

This description will sound hopelessly confusing until you get to the windshield installation. Hopefully it will be some help to people at that stage of the project. I'm sure there are several ways to do this marking and trimming. Including the factory recommendation of fitting the windshield over the outside the air frame, making a mark, and doing a single cut. It would have put a lot of pressure on my windshield to force it over the air frame so I took a couple of days with this approach.

If I were a first time buyer and had the opportunity to visit the factory, I would spend a few minutes congratulating Brandon on his beautiful work with the wings. Then I would ask to meet the guy who fits the cowling and windshield and spend a lot of time trying to learn his techniques!

[jiott]

I bought several more so I could put them in the following places:

Fuse belly under the elevator push/pull rod swing arm.
Fuse tail sides (both) at the trim jackscrew lower mounting points.
Wing roots near the fuel tank outlet fittings.
Wing bottom near the pitot tube connection.
Some folks have added even more.

I did not cut the fabric out of the center of the rings until I actually wanted to use the inspection hole. Some have never been cut in 7 years.

[Cherrybark]

I'm going to have to cut the two on the belly because the DAR wants to touch the push rod connections with stop nuts. He says he's seen far too many planes where stop nuts were not actually engaged. I have repeatedly checked mine and painted the nuts with a line of bright pink fingernail polish. Once the Kitfox is in the hanger, we'll make burgers for some of the EAA regulars, open a cooler of iced beers, hand them a clipboard, and see what they find. I'll share the DAR's findings with this team of "experts".

The nice thing about Oratex is I don't need to necessarily plan the inspection ports ahead of time. Superglue a ring to a desired spot, cover with pre-glued tape, let everything bond, cut.

[Delta Whisky]

Carl - wouldn't want to stop anyone from adding an inspection hole but in the event my DAR would want the same close up as yours, I brought a bore scope to the party just in case he asked. He didn't.

[Cherrybark]

Found an old thread with a really neat idea for making it easier to work on the glare shield <> boot cowl fitting. The idea came from JohnB in the thread - https://tinyurl.com/yytknsjo

The windshield, boot cowl, and glare shield all join along the back of the boot cowl. The glare shield needs to be marked and trimmed to fit neatly while the windshield in the way. John substituted the curved cutoff strip from the windshield and had wonderful access to the area. Trial fits of the glare shield are a breeze. Here area a couple of photos from the thread. In the first, you can see the blue tape holding the Acrylic strip in place. The second shows how easy it is to work on the glare shield.

GlareShield - John.jpgGlareShield 2 - John.jpg

[efwd]

You know, you may have saved yourself from having to install a rudder stop modification as I did. I had set my angles prior to cover as well. Then, after covering, the fabric ate up that gap between the rudder and the vertical tail. To add the gap back in you have to spin the rod end bearing out a bit further. This increased the swing of the rudder since it was now slightly farther from the rudder stop. I had to drill and tap a hole in the flange on the rudder so I could install a couple of AN3 bolts and jam nuts so that I could adjust the swing of the rudder. So, if your swing is too great there is always a way out.