The vans directions call for putting a 45 deg bevel on both the cabin top and the doors. From blogs and looking at planes about half of builders are putting the bevel in, and the other 1/2 are squareing them off. I have decided to square them off. First of all if they are at the 45 then the door might hit/sit on the cabin top instead of fitting against the door seal. Second, I think it will be easier to get an even gap as I can always build up the door or frame with more epoxy. The cabin top door edge is rounded, so I needed to build it up to be square. (At paint time I will put a 3/32 curve on it so the paint won't chip as easy).  I put some packing tape on the edge of the door frame, and then mixed up some epoxy-flox to toothpaste consistancy. I then pushed it down to the packing tape filling it up passed flush with the doorframe.  After it set I then used my small belt sander to sand it flush with the doorframe and cabin top. This method worked very well and I had a nice square edge after the first sanding. At first I only did this on one side of one door to see how it worked out. Next day I did the rest of the edges. Once I am done with the door latches I will re-install the doors and probably need to tweek the doors to get the final edge. (Also want to have the cabin top permenently attached before finalizing the doors.) Getting the edges square only took a total of about 2 hours. |