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Fuselage Completion #12 (Canopy frame, trimming)

Posted by on February 13, 2015

Total build time: 866 Hours.

With my Mom and Bill in town for the week, I wanted to use their extra sets of hands to help me with moving and fitting the plexiglass canopy. I began by preparing the canopy frame. I’m actually installing a swing-back style canopy which I will detail more in another post.

I cut and bent the frame bows to fit the contour of the windshield and turtledeck. These bows were a lot easier to bend (being hollow) than the windshield bow was.

Waiex-1954

Waiex-1955

 

I added an additional rivet hole on the inside of the bow corners, which would allow me to use a cleco to hold the frame in position while fitting the canopy. I didn’t rivet the frame yet because I wanted to be able to clean out all of the debris after drilling all of the rivet and screw holes for the canopy.

 

Waiex-1956

 

Next, the canopy was carefully placed into position for the initial marking and trimming.

 

Waiex-2015

Waiex-2016

 

Initial trim cuts were done with a band saw.

 

Waiex-2017

 

When cleaning up the band saw cuts I tried a variety of tools, and I found the best tool was a scotch brite pad in a die grinder. It removed material relatively quickly (by melting it away and leaved a nice clean edge to be finished with fine sandpaper.) I would actually use this tool for ALL of my trimming after the first 2 cuts on the band saw. My only wish is that I had bigger pads to work more quickly. I wore out the pads fairly quickly but they were cheap to replace.

 

Waiex-2018

 

This process repeated for what seemed like forever…. mark canopy, remove canopy, trim canopy, reinstall canopy, mark canopy… etc.

 

Waiex-2019

Waiex-2020

Waiex-2021

Waiex-2022

Waiex-2023

 

Up until this point, I just had the canopy bows in position to use for fitting. As the canopy got closer and closer to final size, I decided to stop trimming and wait for the canopy frame to be completed (with latches and swingback mechanism.) I’ll detail the swingback mechanism in a different blog post.

Waiex-2024

Once I had the canopy frame ready, the canopy went back on for more trimming. I made a notch in the plexiglass for the middle arm of the swingback mechanism.

Waiex-2052

Waiex-2053

Waiex-2054

 

More trimming… seemed like an endless process. Every time I thought it was a final trim on one edge, another edge needed trimming.

 

Waiex-2057

Waiex-2058

Waiex-2059

 

Since the swingback canopy doesn’t use a piano hinge on the right side, I had Bill fabricate another strap (identical to the one on the left side) to hold the plexiglass to the frame with rivets.

Waiex-2060

Waiex-2061

Waiex-2062

 

I put bends in those straps to help them stay flush with the canopy.

 

Waiex-2067

Waiex-2068

 

Trimming the canopy was an exercise in patience. I must have removed the canopy for trimming 30-40 times before it was done, each time being quite a messy process.

 

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One Response to Fuselage Completion #12 (Canopy frame, trimming)

  1. Matt541

    Great stuff Ryan! I agree, this will definitely be an exercise in patience for me. Thanks for responding to my FB post.

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