How to make canopies

[Kroll777]

This will be short for now. I will add more later.



I took Super sculpey clay and mold into the shape you want. In this case I pushed it up under the original F-16 canopy. Then I extended it according to the diagrams I had of a two seat F-16. Once the shape is right you bake it. Now it is hard , sand, sand ,sand, sand... So its really smooth. Then make a vacuum form machine. I built mine out of wood. You can go onto youtube to see lots of examples of how to do this.





I cut the plastic sheet to shape and place it between two pieces of wood. bake it until it sags. Have your vacuum running put it over your form and you have a canopy that just needs to be cut out.

I use PETG060 14x20x060 sheets which I bought from Industrial art supply in Minneapolis 952-920-2947 This plastic is thick it will take some practice. I'll add more later with more picks running out the door.

Heres the F-16B in the background.

Still haven't had a chance to work on the F-18.




Please ask questions.

[flyboy_fx]

Okay, so I assume this comes out of the vaccumachine without the frame work. How do you add the frame work to it? I'm planning on making a 1/18 BF110. I'll make the basic canopy and then add styrene strips to it for the frame work. Think that will work? By the way, really, really, really awesome customs!!!!

[Kroll777]

Flyboy,

Yeah that's what I'll do on my F-18D. The f-16 you see I used the clay to form the canopy frame. My goal was to cast the canopies. It turned out to be a real pain to cast in clear. I'll show some pictures of my canopy casts. They came out great until I tried to cast them in clear. That cast blew my mold. Needless to say it easier and cheaper to vacuum form the canopy then add details. I try to put together a few more pics up later.

[plasticboy]

It turn out really great!! How do you heat the thick styrene sheet before vacuum? I don't think canopy can't be cast in clear, coz I never success!

[Kroll777]

It turn out really great!! How do you heat the thick styrene sheet before vacuum? I don't think canopy can't be cast in clear, coz I never success!

In the picture above you'll see a frame. Sandwich the plastic between the two frames. The vacuum form box with the vacuum running will be on the floor running in front of your oven. Put the wood frame with the plastic into your oven. When the plastic sags a lot pull it out and place it over your form. Don't let it drip in your oven. Look it up on YouTube. There lots of great videos. I would also use a RC airplane heat gun to help the plastic to mold better. Wear thick gloves.

When I get around to working on the F-18D I'll make a step by step.

[pickelhaube]

Thanks for the tutorial Kroll.

If this is any help for the framesI did this when making my canopy for the Horten project.

I made the glass first I cut off the flash from the glass and left it on my plug.

Then I vacuumed thin white styrene right over the glass and used that for my frame.
I actually did this twice and glued the 2 white styrene's together then Dremaled out the unneeded areas.

I ended up with a tight fitted frame.

The original clear glass/ styrene was sacrificial.

[Kroll777]

Righton Pickle.

Here's alittle more detail on where I went with my canopies.

Here's the Hornet. This canopy is far from finished but these pics will show how I did it.







Now the F-16 casts.
For the frame: the inside frame is the clay shown up top. The exterior frame was paint. After the paint dried I was able to put rivets in it. The mold will pick up these details and the edge of the frame. My goal was to bring a few two seat kits to you guys F-16/ F-18. Ultimately casting the clear which is under extreme pressure blew my molds. The cost was getting way out of control. In the pics below you can see a tan solid plastic cast I made. This was before the clear cast. It was awesome. To bad the clear casts did not work. Those kits may still come but with vacuum form canopies. They would also require someone with some skills in the modeling department. Anyway, heres some pics of that.



You can see the frame on the top and the bottom of the canopy.











As you can see the vacuum form canopy looks pretty good. It's pretty clear and much cheaper to produce. I still have not finished all the details in the F-16 cockpit.

Thanks