Fastback 24
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.
