Hello Eric,

I finished the oil door this afternoon using your hardware, I am really happy with the way it turned out. I have attached a few pictures for you. The white parts you see on the back of the door are pieces of 3mm Depron foam I used to stiffen the door. I used 1 layer of 8oz cloth and two separate pieces of foam for additional strength, this method stiffened the door tremendously. 

The edges of the door recess in the cowl were very poor from Van’s so I wrapped the door in Saran wrap and used ‘’Icing’’ (a polyester putty) to build up the edges for a near perfect fit.

 

Ivan Kristensen  RV10

  
  

Hi Eric,

Thought you might like to check out my log entry and associated pictures of my oil door frame glassing.  It came out really nice, I think.

Best regards,

Matt Dralle
RV-8 #82880 N998RV
http://www.mattsrv8.com

>HOBBS Meter: 1987 Hours
>
>Back in September, I custom cut an all-metal oil fill door after the stock fiberglass one found itself in the garbage pail.  The door came out fantastic and the fit to the cowling was very good as well.  However, as you can see from the first picture in the attached series, the fiberglass molding in the cowling left a LOT to be desired.  Its interesting too, that this molding is so poor as the rest of the cowling is a beautiful work of art.  I'm not sure why they spent so little time trying to get this hole very good.
>
>At any rate, I decided to try my hand at doing a mold-in-place fiberglass molding around the new oil door.  My thought was that I could then sand it down to fit the door exactly and also get a good seal around the door as well.
>
>I started by taking some Glad plastic sandwich wrap and covering the door carefully with exactly one layer of protection.  I brought the edges of the plastic around to the top of the door and used a great deal of Scotch tap to make sure that the plastic was tight all the way around the door.  I cut a slit in the bottom of the plastic to fit exactly around the hinge on the bottom.
>
>I mixed up some epoxy resin and added quite a bit of cotton flocking, making a really thick paste.  I gooped it on to the molding edge of the cowling and carefully used a tongue depressor to get a nice smooth edge along the top of the cowling.
>
>I put the metal oil door back on the cowling in the open position and put the hinge pin back in place and carefully closed the door and latched it.  This caused the goop to squeeze out the sides a little and formed a bead along the bottom as well.  Using the tongue depressor, I gooped on some more and made sure that the whole thing was nice and flat and level, but with about 1/32" of the mixture covering the edges of the door tapering onto the cowling.  On the back side, I squeezed the bead back under the door and made sure that the edge of the door wasn't covered as there wouldn't be a way to sand it away on the bottom because of the step in the cowling and the hinge riveted to the cowling.
>
>I let the whole thing setup overnight and then took it out on the lawn the next day and used some 80 grit in the orbit sander to carefully sand the outer surface down so that the metal of the door just became visible.  I left the plastic wrap and tape in place and sanded right though it.  Otherwise, I would have risked breaking the new fiberglass along the edge if I tried to remove the tape/plastic by hand.
>
>As you can see from the pictures, the door molding came out AWESOME!  I couldn't believe my good fortune.  And to think that I only had to do it ONCE - for once...  :-)  I finished the edges with a rat-tail file and a bastard file and gently broke the edge of the molding with a sponge 120 grit sanding block.    When its painted you should barely be able to see the outline of the door now.
>
>Sweet!
>
>Matt Dralle
>RV-8 #82880 N998RV
>http://www.mattsrv8.com - Matt's RV-8 Construction Blog