I've always felt that every open cockpit I've been around is too fragile and flexible around the combing. A passenger could easily damage most of the cockpits I've seen.
I just can not imagine bending a steel tube precisely enough to fit the cockpit opening shape well. So I decided to mold in place a unidirectional carbon fiber rim on the cockpit opening. I made a dam from tooling wax that kept the fibers where I wanted. There is a 1/2" x 1/4" build-up of carbon on the inside and outside, resulting in a 1/2" x 1/2" square bow around the opening. Because epoxy bonds rather poorly to aluminum, I followed up with a #2-56 flat head screw every 2 1/4 inches or so, through the carbon with a nut on the inside. Of course all this will get covered with a padding tube and wrapped with leather.
The cockpit rim is really stiff. Coupled with the aluminum bulkhead braces on the inside, I think you could sit on the rim of the cockpit with no harm.
Then, it was time to cut out the door! Gulp. Turned out well, I am jazzed. Now I have to do all this again on the front.
- door closed left .jpg (104.74 KiB) Viewed 75 times
- door open left.jpg (111.65 KiB) Viewed 75 times
- door open left 2.jpg (120.72 KiB) Viewed 75 times
- door open right.jpg (105.97 KiB) Viewed 75 times