From what many builders say, the canopy can be one of the hardest parts of the kit. A survey on VAF showed about 1/4 to 1/3 ended up with a crack in their canopy. I plan to glue my canopy on using Sikaflex instead of using the screws to avoid this problem.
Total Construction Time: 148 hours and counting
April 5, 2008 (2 hours)
Measured and drilled the pilot holes in the aft canopy deck for the bolts that will hold the roll bar in place. There are four little pieces that fit under the canopy deck to provide a flat surface for the nuts and washers under the longeron and canopy deck. I trimmed them to size and radiused the edge per the plans, then positioned and drilled the matching pilot holes.
April 6, 2008 (2 hours)
The plans call for the outside edge of the rollbar bottom plate to be inset 7/32" from the outside edge of the aft canopy deck. I found mine to be too wide by about 3/16". The instructions say you can just put one end of the rollbar on the floor and lean on the other end to bend it to the right width. Yeah right.
I put a ratchet strap across the ends and pulled it as tight as I could. Still no luck, it just sprang back to the same width. Finally I took a steel rod and used it like a turnbuckle to tighted the straps even more. I marked the compressed width on my table each time, then released it and checked. It wasn't until I had put enough tension to bring the ends in about 5" before the rollbar maintained the right width when released. I was getting pretty concerned about my ratchet straps breaking, but it held. The steel rod I was using got loose one, giving me a nice bruise on my hand, so I put on gloves after that. I also drilled the holes in the four little clips to final size.
April 7, 2008 (1 hour)
Clamped the roll bar in position and backdrilled the bolt holes up through the bottom of the canopy decks. Then I enlarged the holes to final size.
April 9, 2008 (1 hour)
Inserted the bolts and found that I had to file a little off a couple of the clips to get them to fit right. Then I went ahead and tightened up the bolts so I can check that the rollbar is perpendicular to the canopy deck. Looks very close, but I may add a very thin shim and see where I end up. The picture shows the clips from the bottom. The forward ones are easy to install, but the aft ones are rather difficult as you can tell.
April 12, 2008 (3 hours)
I put a couple of 0.020" shims to cant the rollbar forward and it came out just about perfect. Aaron helped me as I cut the roll bar brace to length and drilled the bolts holes for it. Then we assembled the canopy frame roller assembies and cut the left and right canopy tracks to length.
April 13, 2008 (3 hours)
This morning I marked and drilled the screw holes in the left and right canopy tracks. After dinner I worked on getting the rear slider block drilled just right through the back of the canopy frame. There were a few rivet holes at the top center of the bulkhead at the baggage wall that I hadn't yet riveted so I dimpled and riveted them. Finally I dug out the two parts that make up the rear slider track for the canopy and started marking where the bolt and screw holes go.
April 14, 2008 (2 hours)
Drilled the holes in the thicker slider track strip. Next I bent the two parts to match the template in the drawings and each other, then match drilled the two together. The rivets get double countersunk so the heads on the bottom are flush. I shot some primer on the two mating surfaces and then riveted them together. You can see the track taped to the top of the fuselage below. While it's finally warming up here, it will be a long time before it's warm enough to work on the canopy itself, so I decided it's time to jump back to finish up the wing bottom skins.
June 1, 2008 (2 hours)
Now that the wings are done and back off, and temps are getting into the 70's and 80's, it's time to get back to the canopy. Spent time checking the fit of the canopy frame. Finally figured out how the fit along the side tubes is supposed to work. I trimmed a little off the bottom of one of the front tubes so the square tube was at least at the same height on both sides. Then bent the forward bow outward slightly to get the right width.
June 2, 2008 (2 hours)
Spent quite a bit of time trying to see how the canopy frame needs to fit. Did a little bit of bending, not much. Also trimmed the oval cutout from the rear of the right roller track.
June 3, 2008 (1 hour)
Trimmed the oval cutout from the rear of the left roller track. I also noticed that the top bar of the canopy frame leaned a little to the right, so I bent it slightly by hanging it sideways on my bench and standing on the center bar.
June 7, 2008 (1 hour)
Drilled the front hole in the canopy tracks to the canopy decks to maintain the correct spacing at the front bow. Use a heavy rubber mallet to add a slight bit of bend in the left side tube so that it matches the bend of the sideskins. Luckily the right side matched very well.
I also drove out to see Pete Howell's canopy to better understand how the canopy frame fits when gluing the canopy. Later in the evening Aaron and I stopped by Paul Winkel's house to check out his RV-7 under construction. He's doing a really nice job with his whole plane.
June 8, 2008 (2 hours)
Had a little time trying to do some initial bending of the frame to align the side tubes to be 1/16" inset from the side skins.
June 9, 2008 (6 hours)
Spent a couple of hours after work bending the rear canopy bows. They seemed close, but whenever I bent them in one spot the frame bowed out somewhere else. As I was thinking of hanging it up for the evening we had an issue at work that ended up with me on a conference call until 2 a.m. I basically spent most of this time with the phone on mute and trying to tweak the frame. Multiple times I got it really close, but even small bends were throwing it off elsewhere.
June 10, 2008 (2 hours)
Finally decided to take Pete's advise to cut the rear canopy bow at each side. One side moved a little, but the other side sprung about 3-4" outward when I finished the cut. Now I was finally able to put the bends I needed in without causing problems elsewhere. I should have started with these cuts first.
June 11, 2008 (1 hour)
Spent a little time trimming a little length on the cut ends to get things lined up just right. Perhaps another hour or so of tweaking and it should be good.
June 13, 2008 (4 hours)
Took just a little off each rear bow and got them to fit really nicely. Then I started my first cuts of the plexiglass canopy. I'm using a dremel tool with a plastic cutting disk which seems to work really nice. I cut all four edges off the canopy sides and then sanded them smooth. Had to put the canopy up on the fuselage to see how it looked.
June 14, 2008 (2 hours)
Spent some time checking the fit of the canopy to the frame. After drawing a centerline down the middle of the canopy, I put the canopy upside down on a sheet of plywood and positioned the frame to get a nice fit. I marked where the handle will go and then got to work drilling an 11/32" hole for the handle.
June 15, 2008 (3 hours)
Spent a lot of time messing with my dremel tool, which was working pretty intermittently, finally replacing the brushes to get it to run right. I marked a cut line 1 inch aft of the rear canopy bows then trimmed away the excess. I also cut away the plastic sheet from along where the canopy frame will attach. I finally decided it was time to make the "BIG CUT". I carefully drew a line 1/16" forward of the front bow, then overlaid it with yellow electrical tape, which made it really easy to see. Cutting it was pretty anti-climactic, and I ended up with a pretty nice straight edge. I sanded the cut edge all the way down to 600 grit then had to place it back on the fuse just to see it. It's nice to have that behind me.
June 16, 2008 (1 hour)
I brought my canopy frame over to RV-6A pilot Alex Peterson's house this evening. He was kind enough to weld up the two aft bows where I cut them - Thanks Alex! Later in the evening I filed off the excess weld material. Progress continues.
June 17, 2008 (2 hours)
This evening I put the canopy on the frame and marked a line on the plexiglass 9/32" above the top of the side tubes. This will be where I trim the sides of the canopy where it attaches to the side skirts. I then put the canopy aside and used sandpaper to roughen the whole canopy frame, then painted it with satin black spray paint. Before painting I ran tape along the frame where it meets the canopy to allow the Sikaflex adhesive to bond straight to the powdercoat instead of an additional layer of paint.
June 18, 2008 (1 hour)
Trimmed the bottom sides of the canopy where I had marked them yesterday. Perhaps an hour of prep work to finish and I'll be ready to Sika my canopy to the frame.
June 20, 2008 (1 hour)
Double-checked the fit of the canopy to the square tubes and decided to trim another 1/8" off one of the sides. After that I sanded all the edges of the canopy down to 600 grit sandpaper to make sure I had no nicks or scratches.
June 21, 2008 (2 hours)
Today I used my compressor to blow as much of the dust and plexiglass particles off the canopy. Then I positioned the frame and tan electrical tape along all the edges. Next I roughened the surfaces to get Sika with a scotchbrite pad. I also did some deburring of the side skirt parts.
June 22, 2008 (3 hours)
Tracy helped me to Sikaflex the frame to the canopy. First I cleaned the frame and canopy with the Sika 226 cleaner, followed by priming with the Sika 209N primer. After letting it dry for 20 minutes, I added the rubber hose spacers spaced about 5-6" apart and refit the frame to the canopy. While my frame is just the right width for the rollers to sit in the middle of the track, the plexiglass will make it bow outward. I measured that the frame bows outward about 1/2" with the plexi clamped in place, so I used a couple of aluminum rulers clamped across the top of the frame to hold it about 1/2" narrower than the final width I want. Hopefully once I'm done it will spring back so that the rollers are centered on the tracks.
Once I had it all clamped into position, I used a caulking gun to fill the gap with the Sika 295UV adhesive. Tracy came behind me and used popsicle sticks to smooth the adhesive a little better. I managed to use pretty much a full tube on this first pass, leaving the adhesive just a little short of the spacers to make sure I can pull them out later. I'll let this cure for at least three days before I loosen any of the clamps. Once it's all set up I can pull the spacers out then fill the gaps as well as add a smoother coat along all the rest of the joints.
June 25, 2008
With three days of curing done I decided to take the clamps off and see how my gluing job came out. I was surprised that I ended up with the frame about 3/8" too wide at the front even though I clamped the frame about a half inch narrower than the final width I needed. The aft width of the frame came out almost perfect. It wasn't too hard to bend the front frame in the additional 3/8" I needed and now the rollers are centered in the tracks perfectly. While you couldn't do this with a drilled canopy frame, with Sika I had no problems doing this. I'm really pleased with how this is coming out.
June 27, 2008 (1 hour)
Measured and drilled out the 10 1-1/4" lightening holes in each of the canopy skirt braces.
June 28, 2008 (3 hours)
Today Aaron and I went out to Crystal airport for the VAF MN Wing picnic. Had a good time chatting with all the other RV'ers there. Between the morning and the evening I managed to get a few other things done. I deburred the lightening holes I made yesterday using a scotchbrite wheel in my die grinder. I spent a little time checking the location of the track on each side and then drilled #40 holes to the canopy deck to set their final position. I also decided to do the same with the rear canopy track, getting it positioned just right and then drilling it to the aft fuselage. I then drilled the 1/4" hole in the forward end of the track and also the baggage wall bulkhead and installed the threaded rod that supports the forward end of the track. Finally I decided to finally drill out the six AN470 rivets just aft of the canopy decks, countersink them, then replace them with AN426 rivets. These need to be flush as there's a support bracket that will be mounted on top of the longeron right there.
June 29, 2008 (4 hours)
Did lots of messing around today without a lot of progress. I had to make of the rear delrin blocks a little thinner as it was too wide for the bracket. Then I marked and drilled the holes across the top of the canopy side skirt braces and cut the bottoms of the circles I had made. This will allow it to follow the curvature of the side bows. Later I cut the canopy side skirts, laid out all the holes and drilled them. I spent time also trying to verify how it will all fit on the sides of the canopy.
June 30, 2008 (1 hour)
I finally decided I should have measured a little more carefully on the hole spacing where the side skirt attaches to the brace pieces. Each hole is just a little shy of 1/32" too far apart, meaning I'm off by about a 1/2" by the time I get to the end of the row of rivets. I decided I'm going to make replacement side skirts using the aft skirt material. I plan to make the aft skirts out of fiberglass anyways. So to get at least something done today I drilled the canopy skirt braces to the side bows of the canopy frame.
July 1, 2008 (1 hour)
This evening I made new side skirt pieces and deburred them.
July 2, 2008 (2 hours)
Decided I needed to get the rear frame blocks mounted before I worked on the skirts more. Drilled the holes to #40 in the U-brackets and then to the longerons. Then I got to work drilling the holes in the plastic blocks. This is a little tricky as the hole needs to be positioned at just the right point on the rear of the block, then gets drilled at a 23 degree angle downwards and 5 degrees inwards. Spent a lot of time getting them just right. Once I was done the pins on the canopy frame slide into them just right.
July 3, 2008 (1 hour)
Tonight I enlarged the U-brackets to #12 for the AN3 bolts. I noticed that I didn't quite have the full 1/16" gap from the canopy frame to the side skins, so I adjusted what I could as I drilled these holes. I was still slightly off by just under 0.025", so I positioned the canopy frame with the right alignment, then drilled the screw holes through the U-bracket and plastic block. When I was done I had the alignment right on.
July 4, 2008 (3 hours)
Before the neighborhood picnic started, I spent time double checking the fit of the side skirts. I laid out new hole patterns, drilled them, then went ahead and drilled them to the canopy frame.
July 12, 2008 (2 hours)
Decided it was time to get back to my canopy. Aaron climbed inside and held a block of wood to the side skirt braces while I match drilled them to the side skirts. Then I enlarged the #40 holes from the side skirts to the square tube up to #34 for the blind rivets.
July 13, 2008 (2 hours)
This morning I dimpled the side skirts and brace parts as well as countersunk the outer holes in the canopy frame side bows. After that I prepped, primed and painted the interior parts.
July 16, 2008 (1 hour)
Spent a little time prepping to Sika the canopy to the side skirts. I blind riveted the skirt braces to the inside of the side canopy bows. Then I spent time taking remasking some of the tape along the edges of the canopy.
July 17, 2008 (1 hour)
Put the skirts back on and put the canopy on the fuselage to double check the fit. Looks good to go so I carefully masked the canopy edges right where it meets the skirts. I then took the skirts back off and removed the primer so its bare aluminum where the Sika will be adhering to.
July 20, 2008 (4 hours)
This morning I scuffed up the plexi along the adhesive lines, then cleaned and primed all the surfaces that will be coated. I then ran a pretty heavy bead of Sika along the inner skirt piece to ensure I get the area under the plexi filled. I also added a thinner coat to the outer skirt piece as well as along each side of the plexi. I then assembled and clecoed the skirt pieces. It seemed like I had plenty of adhesive based on some oozing out. I went ahead and blind riveted the skirts to the canopy bow. I next added adhesive to all the remaining gaps, including where the spacers were located when I first adhered the canopy. Later I pulled the tape off and decided to go ahead and rivet the skirt to the braces.
August 25, 2008 (3 hours)
It's almost the end of August and I'm going to run out of 80 degree days to work on the canopy. Decided to get to work trimming it to fit the forward fuselage. I have a little more trimming to do, but it's getting close. Here's one of my neighbors and I making airplane noises.
August 26, 2008 (2 hours)
Did a little more trimming on the front corners to get a nice fit around the whole forward edge of the canopy. Once all the cutting was done I finished sanding the edges down to a nice smooth finish. It looks like the windscreen is going to end up with a pretty nice fit to the fuselage and rollbar.
September 12, 2008 (1 hour)
Sanded, cleaned and painted the rollbar and brace.
September 14, 2008 (1 hour)
In advance of riveting the top skin, I went ahead and bolted the rollbar to the canopy decks. Once the top skin was mostly riveted, I went ahead and bolted the brace in place as well.
September 19, 2008 (1 hour)
With the forward top skin in place I did a little trimming of the windscreen to get a better fit and also made a handful of clips to hold it to the top skin.
September 20, 2008 (3 hours)
I decided I'm going to Sika the upper half of the windscreen in place, coming parts way down the sides, then let it cure. It will be easier to get the curvature to match the canopy shape better by doing it this way. I bent and drilled two of the clips to the top deck to keep the windscreen from moving forward. Then I roughed up the windscreen, applied the primer. After a bit I added Sika to the rollbar and positioned the windscreen on it. I added a few clamps and now I just have to wait a couple of days before doing the rest.
September 22, 2008 (1 hour)
The Sika on the upper half of the windscreen has set and I have pretty good alignment between it and the canopy. I trimmed a little from the canopy and windscreen where they were touching when the canopy was fully forward. Then I figured out what spacers I needed for each side of the windscreen to align it with the canopy sides, then added Sika to bond it in place.
September 27, 2008 (4 hours)
I decided I'm going to make fiberglass aft skirts instead of using the aluminum ones in the kit. I had a slight ski-jump in part of the rear canopy trailing edge, so I filed and sanded that out. Then I positioned the canopy just a crack open and then used packing tape to cover across the gap between the canopy and aft fuselage skin. I then traced the outline of the rear skirt and also taped the metal doghouse at the top. I then applied some epoxy over the whole area and laid up two layers of fiberglass over the back.
September 28, 2008 (4 hours)
With the epoxy set up I mixed up a batch of micro to smooth out the transition from canopy to aft skin. I then started the same process for the strip from the windscreen to the leading edge of the canopy, laying up two layers of glass.
September 29, 2008 (3 hours)
I sanded the aft skirts and decided I needed to add a skim coat before I top it off with another couple layers of cloth. While that was setting up, I was trying to figure out the best way to build out the windscreen to canopy strip. Aaron helped to mix up some flox to thicken the aft edge, but I kept the leading edge a bit thinner. This is a part that everyone grabs when climbing in and out, so having it close to the recommended thickness of 0.080" seems like a good idea. Then I added a layer of cloth over the flox and Aaron brushed on the epoxy. Here's a picture showing the peel ply covering this area.
September 30, 2008 (1 hour)
This evening I sanded the aft skirt, then traced the paper patterns onto the skirt. The skirt came off the taped surfaces easily. I also marked trim lines on the windscreen strip and lifted it up off the tape. I made sure my trim lines were still going to cover the Sika holding the windscreen to the rollbar and the canopy to its frame in the back. I then used my dremel to rough cut the two pieces.
October 1, 2008 (1 hour)
I sanded down the edges of the windscreen fairing and aft canopy skirt. My Catto prop arrived today as well - looks great!
October 2, 2008 (1 hour)
Before the VP debate started I put two layers of 6 oz. cloth over the aft skirt. Despite having no fiberglass experience this is coming out really nice.
October 3, 2008 (1 hour)
Drilled the rivet holes in the aft and side skirts then went ahead and cut the tape across the windscreen to canopy and canopy to aft fuselage gaps. I also added a couple of laters of fiberglass to a few thin spots along the aft edge of the windscreen to canopy fairing.
October 4, 2008 (1 hour)
Sika'ed the sides of the windscreen to the side of the fuselage and clamped in place to cure.
October 6, 2008 (2 hours)
Spent a couple of hours using electrical tape to outline the windscreen fairing outline and taking the packing tape off the upper section. I also riveted the windscreen clips to the fuselage.
October 7, 2008 (2 hours)
Sanded the windscreen and fuselage skin then mixed up some black pigment into an epoxy/micro mix and put a bead around the whole bottom of the windscreen.
October 10, 2008 (2 hours)
Added about 4-5 layers of fiberglass around the bottom of the windscreen.
October 11, 2008 (2 hours)
There were still a couple of low areas so I mixed up a little flox to build it up then added a couple of layers of cloth over it, then added a stiff mix of micro over the whole bottom windscreen area.
October 12, 2008 (4 hours)
Today I did some sanding and double checking the fit of the windscreen fiaring and aft skirts, then decided I was ready to permanently attach them. I decided to use Sika for both of these which seemed to work out well.
October 14, 2008 (2 hours)
Looks like I got a nice fit for both the aft skirt and top windscreen strip. Did a little sanding and cleaning, then used some flox to fill the recessed part of the windscreen top strip where it meets the base.
October 15, 2008 (2 hours)
Did a little sanding, then used micro to get a smooth fill in the back lower corners of the windscreen.
October 18, 2008 (2 hours)
Worked on smoothing out the aft skirt by sanding then filling the fiberglass weave with a thin micro coat.
October 20, 2008 (1 hour)
Did some sanding around part of the windscreen base.
October 21, 2008 (2 hours)
Finished sanding around the windscreen. You can see some of the low areas around the lower aft corner.
October 22, 2008 (3 hours)
Still had a few low areas around the windscreen so I added some micro to those areas. I also did a bunch of sanding of the aft skirts..
October 25, 2008 (6 hours)
Taped off the areas around the windscreen and aft skirt. Then worked for a long time trying to final sand both smooth.
October 26, 2008 (8 hours)
Did more sanding especially around where it meets the plexi. This is very slow, putsy work. After I took the picture I used some high build primer on the aft skirt and windscreen. This primer dries really fast, allowing you to lightly sand in around 30 minutes. Now that it's all one color I can see a few areas where I still have some work to do, but most of the aft skirt and much of the windscreen really came out nice.
October 27, 2008 (1 hour)
Did some light sanding of the aft skirt, then shot one final light coat and then final sanded. This came out far better than I expected.
October 28, 2008 (1 hour)
Sanded a few spots on the windscreen then added some micro to smooth it out, primarily where it meets the forward top skin.
October 30, 2008 (2 hours)
Did a little more sanding around the windscreen then shot one last coat of primer over these areas. Also painted the inside surface of the aft skirt with some black matte paint.
October 31, 2008 (2 hours)
Lightly sanded the primer coat around the windscreen, then pulled the tape from around all the edges. This came out really nice. I'm so glad to have this done.
