Hi Guys,
I did something a little different with my panel, so I thought I'd chime in
here. Although my cockpit is painted with silver/gray Zolatone, my instrument
panel top and tray are covered in black felt. We started doing this on
sailplane panels some years ago and found that it works great for glare
reduction
and seems to keep the cockpit cooler. There is just enough stretch in the
felt to make covering compound curves easy.
The felt is attached with 3M Spray 77. I made a crude pattern set using thin
plastic sheet draped over the module to get the basic shape, marking the
plastic with a Sharpie pen. Make your pieces a little bigger than necessary.
Once glued in place the felt easy to trim to fit with a sharp razor blade. It
is
done in 5 pieces, the top over the instrument area, the back of the sandwich
tray, the front of the sandwich tray, the right side of the sandwich tray
and the bottom of the sandwich tray. The felt wraps over and around the front
of the top and under by about 1". It wraps over the front of the tray by about
3". The rest of the panel is painted with either Zolatone, under the
sandwich tray, or flat black, around the instruments. Use a plastic bondo
spatula
to smooth out any wrinkes that might occur in the felt. The result looks
really nice and items placed in the tray don't slide around as much as they
would
if the felt weren't there. It's easy to peel off if you ever want to redo
it. Xylol cuts the 3M adhesive. You can also stick a small piece of hook side
velcro onto a pen and it'll stay put when placed on the felt.
Contact me off list for pictures.
Regards,
John Lawton
Dunlap, TN
N245E - Flying - 59.0 hours
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