#4971554
Hello All,

I was wondering if anyone might have some recommendations for how to best trim the inside of the gbfans shell to help the power cell lens fit flush on the inside of the pack. If I try to place the blue lens cover in at this time, there is a pretty sizeable gap on one side of the lens that would be noticeable from the front/side of the pack due to one end of the fiberglass being thicker than the other. I've tried using a dremel to grind some of it down but it doesn't seem to be working very well so I thought others might have some insight. Hopefully you can see in the image I have attached that it is quite a bit thicker on the left side (over twice as thick) as on the right. It also doesn't help that this is a pretty small area to get some tools into for cutting.

Thanks for any tips from the experienced builders in the community!

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#4971562
Your best bet for that application and what I've always used throughout the years is a Dremel tool with a grinding stone. The particular grinding stone I've used is the orange circular grinding stone with the square edge to get the proper thickness. You could also use the rounded pointy tip orange grinding stone for the hard to get corner areas. It will take some elbow grease but you can use it for both the Powercell window and the cyclotron lenses. Hope that helps man!

You could also use some form of Epoxy putty to build up any low areas if you need to even anything out.
tobycj liked this
#4971587
StoneWall9001 wrote: July 22nd, 2022, 12:44 pm Hello All,

I was wondering if anyone might have some recommendations for how to best trim the inside of the gbfans shell to help the power cell lens fit flush on the inside of the pack. If I try to place the blue lens cover in at this time, there is a pretty sizeable gap on one side of the lens that would be noticeable from the front/side of the pack due to one end of the fiberglass being thicker than the other. I've tried using a dremel to grind some of it down but it doesn't seem to be working very well so I thought others might have some insight. Hopefully you can see in the image I have attached that it is quite a bit thicker on the left side (over twice as thick) as on the right. It also doesn't help that this is a pretty small area to get some tools into for cutting.

Thanks for any tips from the experienced builders in the community!

Image
I just did this for a pack I built for another guy. I used a #115 high speed cutter bit and a sanding/grinding attachment that just happened to come with my Dremel kit. With this attachment you can precisely adjust the thickness of the lip you want. The tool will slide over the top of your shell from the outside and the shaft of the bit fill prevent it from accidentally cutting into the rectangular hole you've cut. That bit will give you about a 3/32" clean lip. You can then widen that more from the inside (without the attachment).

That said, if your booster tube and other parts near that window are already mounted you won't be able to fit that attachment in there.

This post from that build shows what this looks like. This was a resin shell from Benofkent props:

viewtopic.php?p=4970937#p4970937

Good luck!

Shawn
#4971597
Agreed with Pchrisbosh1 on the cylinder Dremel grinding stone using the flat edge. The Dremel Flex Shaft attachment is super helpful here, I recommend getting one of those. I rarely use my Dremel without it now.

For depth control, I made some depth guide spacers out of plastic washers and styrene strips and taped them to the front of the shell so I could have a reference to how deep I needed to Dremel down from the inside to get my desired thickness and make things uniform. It doesn't have to be perfect from the inside, whatever glue you use for the lenses will help seal up any gaps but this technique helps a lot.

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