September 22 – October 3, 2020
Finally time to start doing canopy fittings. The initial fitment of the canopy frame from Vans look really good.
None of the dimensions matched what were in the instructions or drawings though, so we started bending. Bending the square tubes to fit the shape of the fuselage sides took more than just body strength and some pulling. I ended up screwing some wood blocks to the workbench and using some leverage.
As it turns out this was a horrible idea. People say getting the frame into shape from Van’s is hard, turns out its physically impossible. Setting the side rails so they were 1/16″ inside the skins was easy. At that point, opening the canopy was impossible because the rear frame caught the turtle deck skins by over 1/2″ per side. This also set the rails on the side an inch too narrow than called for in the plans and they wouldn’t be able to be drilled properly. After pulling the sides back apart so the canopy would actually move, the shape doesn’t match the fuse skin very well at all. We figured that function was more important the form, and moved on to the plexiglass work. We set the frame in the plexiglass and lined everything up for the big cut.
I did all the initial trimming up to this point and including the big cut with the supplied cutoff wheel on a die grinder. If you’re at this point and haven’t made the cut yet, please go get a Dremel SawMax or UltraSaw. The SawMax SM500 blade or the UltraSaw US600 blade work great and make this so much easier. Its 10 times faster and 100 times easier to get straight cuts. Leaver yourself extra room on the canopy side of the big cut. I did it exactly as the plans state and its tight for material on the canopy side now. After that I moved on to the side skirts.
I was able to get the side aluminum canopy skirts installed and bent in a way that they sit very well against the side of the fuselage. The only part that looks a little wonky will be covered up by the rear canopy skirt so I’m not overly concerned about it. With the way the frame is fit, there’s no way to use metal rear skirts. I’ll lay up a set of fiberglass skirts later to make the transition smooth. The windshield still needs a final trimming as well. There’s gaps big enough to fit my fingers through on each side of the windshield, so I’ll carefully remove some more material to make it sit right during final trimming.
My plan is to glue the canopy and windshield to the frames, so I’m not ready to permanently install those yet. We had our tech advisor come by today and take a look and he basically agreed with our assessment of shape and next steps. Over the next week I’m planning on doing the final trimming and sanding of all the edges for final install prep.
-Paul
(Total Build Time: 699.1)