11/01 - 30: 30 Hours?
Been working on the canopy frame and canopy plexi all month. None of which was very fun.

Canopy frame fitting. This was truly a pain in the chops. Off again, on again, off again... well you get it. I am not exactly happy with it especially the front right side where I bent it too much and caused a flat spot on the top. After talking with Van's, they said to press on as the plexi will conform to shape of the frame after it gets warm. I found this to be true after the fitting stage of the plexi and left it clamped down one night with a space heater running inside the cockpit. When I took off the clamps the canopy basically stayed conformed to the frame.
 

Initial cuts for practice


Fitting the frame to the plexi and initial cuts made.


Finalize placement of the plexi to canopy to fuselage:


Drilled the plexi to the frame. You can see in the last picture the the left side rear bows out a little as compared to the right. I found that the slider tracks were off a bit so I reposition and drilled again. Not a big deal since all I had were #40 holes to begin with and the move was less than 1/16. This helped but not perfect. Slapping a whole bunch of fiberglass will hide everything I am sure.


3 f'ing cracks, 1 due to insufficient edge distance (dumbass move on my part) and the last two due to Van's crappy instructions that say to use a caged, fluted countersink. I found on VAF that you should use a zero flute countersink available most anywhere... mine is on the the way from Skygeek. Not a big deal on the cracks, the one due to edge distance I will simpy Sikaflex or whatever to the frame and the other two were stopped drilled with a #50 (read freakin small) bit. I will probably get some plexi glue called Weld-On 3 to wick into these cracks as well as recommended on VAF.


Started the cuts on the windscreen plexi: