Canopy Work Started

Finally back at building and it's fun! After cleaning up the work shop a bit more and making room for the large canopy frame I could more this piece inside the shop and start section 34. A bad time of year to do this as it won't be warm enough to do the fiberglass layup by the time the frame would be ready for it, but I will just have to deal with it, I guess.

First I found out that I had to damage my beautiful paint job that I've done on the frame. The front part of the arched tube had to get filed down where the weld would otherwise have contact with the canopy glass later in the game. Fortunately this won't be a prominent point, so the touch up I will have to do there will likely not show.


Then some countersinking in an unusual size for a #10 screw had to be done on the inside of the frame.


And then some match-drilling, deburring and riveting on both sides of the canopy frame. Sorry for the reflection.


And then the latch handle stop had to get positioned on the frame, then match-drilled, deburred and also riveted. This required a little bit more attention as the part needed some reference lines drawn onto the frame to get correctly positioned. I also installed the handle before match-drilling to make sure there was enough contact surface for the stop to work.


The riveting part was simple as usual.


This was the end of the preparation of the frame. Before installing it on the fuselage I had to find the top cover for the instrument panel area and re-install this cover. Therefore I also clecoed the center piece of the instrument panel in place so the cover would have the correct shape.
The final result looked like this.


Unfortunately, I couldn't install the gas struts yet as I cannot open the frame all the way to get the holes aligned to install the final bolts on each side. The plane will have to get moved from under the patio cover to get that done.

BTW: The Mexican hat in the previous picture is NOT the one that Dave has shown in his blog with the cat dancing on it. The hat certifiably is hanging on this wall for longer than we own the house and never came off. Who knows what we would find on the inside? I rather not find out!