National Aeronca Association Bulletin Board

Has anyone "covered" the glare shield with leather/vinyl or any other material, in order to improve the look and stop the paint chipping up there?
If so, any tips on technique or application?

Bob,

My Sedan has leather over the glareshield and while it does look nice, it could have been done better and is not uniform.

That said, I cannot imagine it any otherwise but then its not a "working airplane" either.

Joe A

Bob,

A working mate of mine is in the final stages of completing his RV-7 kit build. We have just discussed the same topic at work. He told me that he had seen another RV that had the entire glareshield covered with the loop side (soft side) of Velcro tape. The idea is to have a black-colored protection that would, at the same time, serve as a holder for anything that you want to attach up there. For example, you could stick a small piece of the opposite (hook) side onto your sunglasses holder and it would perfectly be held in place wherever you position it on the glareshield. Or a pencil holder, a GPS, or.....

Sounds interesting, but I am sceptic, in regard to cleaning out dead bugs or other dirt. Probably need a vacuum cleaner for that. Also, will the glue withstand the heat behind the windshield? (You could run a test with a small piece.) Might also be a challenge to find such a large sheet of Velcro. Otherwise you just place stripe beside stripe.

Matt

Did a quick google search and these companies offer the largest sheets I could find:

http://www.flyingtigerssurplus.com/c-12 ... id-12.html
http://www.hookandloop.com/site/departm ... level=2000

In RC modeling, we use sheets that are about 6 x 8" and they seem to be cut from even larger sheets. If you are interested, let me know, then I will try to find out, where those are manufactured. Or we simply wait, until my colleague has located the material for his RV.

Matt

This sounds interesting and I like the "non-glare" as well as the stickyness of the covering.

Let us know how this turns out. While I like the colored dash on the plane right now does not mean that I could not make some updates.

Joe A

Will do, Joe.

Yes, I find it a very interesting and innovative idea, too, but....
Will you ever be able to remove it again, when you need to? Maybe.
And, above all, does it fit into a 1949 classic??? Naahh!

Matt

Matt,

There is no reason why the material cannot be "velcro'ed" to the dash much the same as a normal cover, and removed at will. If you put several strips in each corner and along the front it should sit nicely and hold anything needed.

May try it myself and see how it works.

Joe

Now that is an even more sophisticated solution, Joe!

I always had a sheet of self-sticking velcro in mind that was glued to the metal with its entire surface. But you are right, of course, why not attach a "Velcro" blanket by fixing it along a few lines or spots of Velcro?!

Matt

Just remembered that the leather dash covering in the Sedan right now is velcro'ed to the metal dash, so I can just get some velcro and put strips on the back of it to correspond to the same on the leather and give it a try.

Will see what I can find, the price and how it looks.

Good idea!

Joe

Bob,

Several years ago I put some fabric on my dash and love it. It is from McMaster-Carr and is a fabric that is also velcro style material, but smooth to the touch and a matt black so it tones down any glare.

I gave the remains to Matt to see if he likes it but it sure works on my end.

Joe