For Jim Nordin --
While I am still in the build phase, I did make my 360 panel
removable. I am doing what many others have done -- trim out the inside of
the fiberglass panel and affix to it flat 0.063 inch aluminum sheets to
which the instruments are attached. (you know, aluminum panel
inserts...)
The fiberglass panel, now more of a frame, is attached at four points to my
airframe. At each canopy sill I have a 1/4 inch think phenolic "tab" which
sticks inboard from the sill about an inch or two. The panel pays flat
against this tab, and a bolt holds them together. At the bottom, I bonded
two 90-degree flanges to the top of the spar. The bottom of the panel is
screwed to each of these flanges.
I affixed the phenolic tab to the sill by hot-gluing an aluminum angle to
the sill, clamping the phenolic to the angle with a cleco-clamp, and floxing it
in place. Then I took off the aluminum angle and BID-taped the front face
and the back face to the sill (two separate layups, done at the same time, I
don't remember how many BID but probably four). I learned long ago that if
you put flash tape under the hot glue, it peels off nicely. If you don't
do this, you spend too much time scraping off hardened hot glue.
I made the spar flanges in a similar manner, but I put flash tape on the
angle and laid up the fiberglass directly onto that -- an inch or so on the spar
cap and then turn the corner onto the angle. (Probably 6 BID -- wait 24
extra hours for the flange to get really hard or otherwise it may deform when
you pull off the angle.) Once I pulled off the angle, I scuffed up the
back face and added one more BID where the angle was (turning the L- flange into
a T-flange) in order to prevent the flange from peeling off. (Very
important.)
As I complete my panel installation this winter, I will make sure that
there are electrical connectors allowing me to disconnect the panel for easy
removal. Haven't figured out how to disconnect the pitot-static and vacuum
lines -- I'll probably just pull them off somewhere and buy
another pitot-static check when I put it back together.
Good luck.
- Rob Wolf