Yellowed canopy

[Ron Bell]

I have an old vacuform canopy that has yellowed. Does anyone have a suggestion as to how to 'de-yellow' it? I know about the "tape it to the window" technique for decals, but will it work for a vacuformed canopy?

[ghodges]

To my knowledge, you cannot bleach out the yellow in a vac canopy as it's a chemical reaction in the plastic as opposed to a yellowed clear coat over a decal. I've never had any luck making a yellowed canopy any clearer, nor have I ever seen anyone else show a way to successfully do it.

My solution has always been to fill the old canopy with Plaster of Paris to make a new mold to vac over. You could simply back it with hard clay and vac over it directly, but then your copy will be slightly larger than the original. Hope this helps!

 

Gil 

[Ron Bell]

Yeah, I guess it's hopeless. I don't have a vac form machine and also have never done "stretch forming", but may have to. Maybe I can find one on the interweb. 

[PaulBradley]

What kit is it for? 

[Neo]

Homemade vac-form rigs can be made from stuff found around the house:

I made this little "mini-former", but never made the perforated base plate for it.  Some PC prototyping board would work well.

A simple plunge-former just consists of a piece of plywood with a slightly oversize hole cut for the master to pass through:

The trick is you need to plunge from the side the sheet plastic is, so I use the light from the flame to "see" where the hole in the plywood is.

HTH

[Ron Bell]

Interesting, but WAY more than I would ever utilize. I found an easier solution, a scrap Matchbox Meteor F14 kit. I can use the canopy and the landing gear.