Custom bezel mounts
The default method of fastening the supplied wing bezels is with M3 self tappers, cutting into the acrylic itself. I chose instead to make brackets from 1mm 6061-T6 with embedded zinc plated steel M3 clinch nuts (thanks to Richard Howell for alerting me to these) , in conjunction with stainless steel M3 screws combined with 0.5mm M3 washers.
The existing holes in the bezels badly mismatched the the holes in the leading edge. As the latter are rev 0 this could be a matter of the leading edge holes being moved for subsequent revisions. In my case I just made fresh M3 holes, using only the original topside M3 holes to get started.
The brackets were primed and top-coated, and fastened to the acrylic with hot glue.
Some crazing of the left hand bezel was noted, and a small crack has developed in the right hand bezel, originating in one of the holes. Both these defects are on the underside and not too noticeable.
The bezels used were actually replacement for the originals supplied with the kit. They had the advantage that they were pre-bent. This is what led me to purchase them. They are also 1.3mm thick, greater than the 1mm of the originals. The original, flat, acrylic sheets will be used as replacements if needed. I found that bending the acrylic was quite straightforward by heating, using the new bezels as forms.
Serious hole misalignment
Strips formed, with 4.2mm holes for the CM3-1 clinch nuts
After priming. Polished steel block used for swaging clinch nuts.
Blocks in vise. With handle extender, enough compressive force (approx 1000kg) was developed to swage clinch nuts
After top coating. Some bubbling occurred around the clinch nuts. Affected pieces were used on the top side.
The swaging forces actually caused the long pieces to stretch slightly. A simple fix was to put seams at a number of locations along the strip. An alternative would have been to cut into multiple shorted pieces
Match drilling acrylic to leading edge skin holes, themselves enlarged to 3.3mm. The holes in the metal pieces were match drilled to these holes as well. A 1.3mm shim was placed between the skin and the curved short metal pieces - because of the small radii of the latter) so as to tweak the hole positions appropriately
Left bezel mounted
Left bezel mounted - another view
Right bezel
Right bezel - detail
Author
This post is from Adam Dickson
