Here is my overzealous trim repair after the epoxy set.

And here it is again after filing and sanding. It looks great!

With the hinge installed I can finally open and close my cockpit! Such a small thing, but it seems like a major milestone to me! 🙂

The Show Planes instructions show the side of the canopy skirt being flush with the side skin, not the forward skin. However, I decided I wanted to trim it  just a little further aft, in order to be flush with the 801pp forward skin that ends one rivet further back. To do this, I would need to extend the length of the fillets. No problem! I have a little bit of the original portion of the fillets, and I was able to quickly fabricate extensions. Joining these two will be a breeze, but as I’m not ready to complete the fillets just yet, I will return to that later.

The rear seat back top no longer has any pin holes, so I decided to complete that project quickly.

With the rear seat complete, I set about beginning the installation of the canopy skirt bulkheads and supports. Show Planes recommends using flox to adjoin the parts. With the honeycomb have such a large gap, that was going to be an incredible amount of flox! I decided to put some fiberglass in the honeycomb first. This will increase the strength and should reduce the amount of flox required.

It wasn’t easy though. The thin strips of fiberglass were a pain to work with. I’m not sure if I will do this again.

Following my buddy Mike’s lead, I decided to convert most of my phillips screws to torx. Its been on my list for quite awhile, but as I’ve been working on the canopy frame, I’ve had to place and remove the instrument panel cover about a million times, and I’m already fed up. Phillips are the worst.

Microfasteners.com

Albany County Fasteners

In my last post, I advised not to trim too much. Naturally, I wound up trimming too much in my very next session. I needed to trim the forward portion of the left side in order to fit the forward section of the skirt.

The gap between the skirt and the rail is the amount I over trimmed.

I tabled repairing that mistake. Since the epoxy would need to set, I would affect the repair as my last task for the session. In the meantime, I continued work on fitting the forward section of the canopy skirt.

There is some interference with the fillet and instrument cover on the left side. I marked the area for further sanding.

The instructions also detail adding an additional rivet location for the hinge. Here you can see the mark for where to place that rivet.

Turning my attention to the hinge, I trimmed the hinge to fit.

I clamped the hinge to the left side, and ensured the outer edge was flush.

At this point, you trim an additional 3/16″ off the right side of the canopy skirt to allow the hinge to canopy to open. 

With the 3/16 removed, I positioned the canopy skirt on the fuselage and taped it in the four corners and at the front.

I marked the hinge locations for drilling, and knocked out the drilling in no time.

Before leaving, I repaired my over zealous trimming from earlier. I used a scrap section of the canopy skirt and flox. After this is set, I will likely put some glass layers on the reverse side for additional strength.

Long day in the hangar today, but an exciting one! I finally can officially say I’ve begun work on the canopy!

Step number 1 is to place the canopy frame in place, and ensure proper positioning. This is done in two ways. First you measure the canopy frame from the front. The foam insert should be approximately 3/4 of an inch behind the skin reinforcement shown here.

Next select four points on the frame. (Basically the corners). The points should be on the same position relative to one another. Here you can see the points I selected on the right hand side. I then mirrored these points to the left side. I measured these four locations to the joggle. And by joggle, I’m referring to the line where the canopy and canopy skirt will intersect. I also selected four points on the outside of the canopy frame and measured here. Finally, I used a level to check my sanity. (Don’t use the level as the primary method of positioning the canopy frame.)

After I was positive the canopy skirt was positioned properly I marked the forward cut line, and the points at which the rails intersected on both sides.

At this point, I needed to return my attention to the instrument cover. The next step requires the instrument cover be installed to check the fit of the canopy skirt after trimming to ensure there isn’t any contact between the forward foam reinforcement (used to measure the 3/4 inches above).

Here you can see the intersection from the fillet on the right side.

And the left side.

I installed all the nut plates so that I could be 100% sure the instrument cover was properly positioned.

Here is the canopy skirt after trimming with the instrument cover installed beneath. Note, that the cover does NOT go forward of the skin, and nests on the canopy cover. The result is a smooth transition.

I also did the initial trim on the right side in order to begin the hinge installation. Be careful. Always measure twice, and when cutting err on the side of leaving extra material. Its easy to make small adjustments with a dremel and file to remove a little more material.

At this point, there aren’t too many more pictures, or much to explain, however there was a lot of time spent. I carefully filed the forward intersection for a nice fit. This required multiple instances of installing the frame, and then removing. Each time checking for alignment. I do not need to make it perfect at this point, but my goal is to incrementally adjust this puppy with the end result being a very true and flush fit.