4 place front door weight

[Nev]

Has anyone weighed their front doors? (Upper and lower combined) I’d be interested to know.

I completed one of my seaplane doors and it’s heavier than I expected. It “felt” fine up until I added the acrylic. Each door now weighs 11 lbs which I think leaves a lot of low hanging fruit for a weight reduction. I think by going to carbon fibre tubing a lot of savings could be made. Also with the latching mechanism, which is where I suspect I’m getting additional weight from.

[robcaldwell]

When I completed my gull wing doors with the carbon fiber frame and the Lexan installed, they weighed a bit over 8 pounds each.

[svyolo]

My upper and lower door frames weigh 5 lbs combined, unfinished. That is the upper and lower for one side. I think I can cut that about in half using aluminum or carbon fiber, and I am going the aluminum route due to cost/benefit over carbon. But the glass is the heavy part.

I weighed my skylight stuff (not including the aluminum strips on top). it weighed about 14 lbs, The 1/8" lexan was well over half of that, I think it was 8 or 9 lbs. If you use the same thickness the seaplane door glass will be about 6 lbs.

[whee]

Polycarbonate and acrylic are heavy, that’s where most of your weight is. I’d bet I could remove close to 50lbs if I removed my skylight, big rear windows and full glass seaplane doors. But I’m not going to, the visibility is worth it and then some.

[Battson]

My thoughts exactly

[robcaldwell]

I used 1/16" Lexan for the skylight, and 1/8" for the doors.

[Nev]

Rob are you happy with your skylight? Is the thickness sufficient?

[robcaldwell]

So far, so good! No cracks. I used acrylic drill bits and over sized my holes.

[Battson]

Don't be tempted to go thinner on the acryllic in the large front windows / doors. It drums like a speaker and nobody likes it. We had to change the windows in ZK-FHR for this reason. A little over 3mm was the thinnest we could go (1/8", same as Rob), 2mm was no good at all. Passengers hated it.

But yes, it's very heavy.

Bob's fabric doors are the lightest way to go. But ultimately, a few extra kgs for great visibility - I mean - that's the whole point of going flying, good views

A idiom, you could save a lot more weight by building a smaller plane - but that's not the point of having a plane.

My point is, sometimes weight is necessary.

[svyolo]

I have to agree. The only things I am adding weight intentionally is visibility and easy to work on. I hate driving a car I can't see out of. A skylight was a no brainer

[whee]

My point is, sometimes weight is necessary.

“Light as possible, heavy as necessary.”

[Bcone1381]

Hummmmmmm.....I played with sheet acrylic products in the previous century as a pre-teen in junior high school.

If you could join acrylic so that the two pieces weld into an optically pure single piece using a cement that is so viscus that capillary action sucks it into a joint.....then it seems to me one could engineer a window/door the is lighter and stronger than a single thick piece and and yet resist drumming. Beefing up the parameter where fasteners attach might seem prudent as well.

I could do it then....maybe this was the stuff we applied to a joint.

https://www.tapplastics.com/product/...lic_cement/130

[Bcone1381]

.....an acrylic joint.

[schu]

I just weighed mine. 12.5lbs. They are heavy, but then again, they aren't one lick heavier than my 170 and I have:

Seaplane doors.
Powder Coated square tube. (They are sturdy and look nice)
Machined billet door handles. (Hendricks)
Locks.
Sliding windows in window track.
3/16 plexi to fill the window track and make sure they won't come out or drum.

I figure I'm about 5lbs over budget on them, but they are a really nice part, and I get seaplane doors, with windows, without airspeed restrictions on opening them.

[Nev]

Got any photos ?? Sounds really good.

[schu]

Looking at plexi, I can go back to 1/8 and trim the edges with aluminum channel to stiffen them and make them thick enough to make the window track work and save about 2.5lbs, but I'm not sure I'm going to do that right now, Maybe play with that after it's flying since I have the glass and it's stiff, and it is very nice.

[Nev]

Very nice work Schu.

[rodsmith]

I'm just finishing up the front seaplane style front doors. I recalled this post and the warning to use 1/8th inch acyrlic or lexan to avoid drumming. At the time I had just bought .100 lexan. Now I am debating whether to go ahead and use it and replace it later if it is a problem or go ahead and get 1/8th thick now. Has anyone else used .100 (2.5mm) for 1 piece seaplane door windows?