Due to limited garage space I decided to build the canopy and turtledeck.
First you have to build a wooden frame in the shape of the canopy. I decided to make mine 1.75 inches wider and taller in the front to make it more spacious which has been done before by many builders.
The turtle deck is made by laying in strips of foam about 8 inches in width. The strips need to be tapered a bit to accommodate how the turtle deck narrows at the aft end.
Two plies of uni directional (UNI) fiberglass are layed up on the inside of the turtle deck at alternating angles.
A bulkhead is made and glassed in at the forward end to provide rigidity and strength to the turtle deck.
A drip rail is fabricated at the cut line between the forward half that will hinge with the plexiglass canopy.
The turtle deck is removed from the frame and flipped over to sand and smooth out the top side. Pour foam is used to fill in gaps where foam strips are joined and other divets.
The top side is also glassed with two plies of UNI at alternating angles.
There you have it a glassed turtle back, still need to cut out the openings for the windows and install them.
After a lot different layouts I finally cut out the window openings. For some reason I don't have any pictures of the window installation, it was a pain, maybe that' why.
Now it's on to Chapter 20, the Winglets.