Wingtip light retainer alternatives.

[VWInc]

Whilst upgrading the Rocket to led lights, I decided that paying $260 for a piece of plastic was not smart. Instead, I made my own retainers for each wing. They turned out pretty nice. 1/16 abs vacuum formed goodness. Made them a little longer than stock one to cover up the wiring on the back side. Optional recog lights only take a little trimming. I'm $25 all in and very happy.

[Fly Boomer]

40 minutes ago, VWInc said:

Whilst upgrading the Rocket to led lights, I decided that paying $260 for a piece of plastic was not smart. Instead, I made my own retainers for each wing. They turned out pretty nice. 1/16 abs vacuum formed goodness. Made them a little longer than stock one to cover up the wiring on the back side. Optional recog lights only take a little trimming. I'm $25 all in and very happy.

Nice!  How did you make the "form"?

And please tell us more about your Rocket.

EDIT:  Did you replace all your lights with LED?  I read that there is some kind of issue with a dimming circuit designed by Mooney that relies on the resistance of incandescent.

[VWInc]

I replaced all of the exterior lights with leds so I dont melt the plastic lenses. The only interior lights that are led are the flaps and cowl flap position lights. And they do "dim" rather oddly. 

The buck for the vacuum form was a few pieces of mdf board that I made to fit the original retainer. Flip it over and it fits the opposite wing. The trick was getting enough heat into the abs before placing it on the vac jig. 

The Rocket is slowly being fixed up (its airworthy, just not pretty). It's our Rocket rescue project. Next is interior as soon as we get a hangar... 2yrs on the waitl list...getting close.

[Aerodon]

Nice job.  I'm curious, where did you get the ABS, and how thin is it after stretching around the front and back of the form?

And a picture of your oven please?

 

Don

 

[VWInc]

12 hours ago, Aerodon said:

Nice job.  I'm curious, where did you get the ABS, and how thin is it after stretching around the front and back of the form?

And a picture of your oven please?

 

Don

 

I got the abs from amazon. A 16"x12"  worked well. There is not a noticeable difference in thickness after forming and it is just as rigid as the original piece. As for the oven, since this was an experiment is used a torch. If I were to make ones for anyone else, I would build a heating oven.

Edited March 10, 2024 by VWInc

[N201MKTurbo]

I used to work for a place that had a vac-u-former. It had a frame you would clamp the plastic sheet into. The frame would hold the sheet about 4 inches below the heater which looked like the broiler from an electric oven. You just turned on the heater and waited for the plastic sheet to sag, which took about 20-30 seconds. Then turned on the vacuum and lowered the frame with the hot plastic onto the suction plate with the pattern on it.

The place did custom car interiors. They would make custom door panels out of stacked MDF and carve it with belt sanders until it looked the way they wanted, then throw the MDF into the vac-u-former and make the final plastic door panel. We had guys that could make a custom door panel in less than an hour.

Everybody played with the vac-u-former. If you wanted a tool organizer for your tool box, you just laid all the tools on the vac-u-former and sucked down a sheet of plastic onto them, then trim it, flip it over and put it in your drawer.