Canopy is going very well so far. LOTS of time spent prepping parts including priming and painting as parts are fitted - fitting is itself an interesting process. The aft canopy rail angle, aft canopy rail flange, and aft canopy rail take quite a bit of fluting, shaping, match drilling etc.
One lesson I keep forgetting is that priming and painting are hard in mid-summer Florida humidity. I had to re-do several parts - finally just gave up on the outside work and did these in the shop. Smelly but better results.
But when all this is done, they go together nicely. Fluting the angle in particular was hard as it is a very thick part - I ended up using the vise as a helper to fully squeeze the flutes (Vise also helpful in "unfluting" where part was "over corrected"). I'm pleased with results of the final assembly - one interesting part is driving the shop head of rivets on bottom of the angle into countersunk holes. The size 3 rivets are nice and (almost) flush, but the size 4's stick out a bit. Instructions make this sound acceptable as a seal will end up in this area but if necessary i can sand those down a bit later.
One lesson I keep forgetting is that priming and painting are hard in mid-summer Florida humidity. I had to re-do several parts - finally just gave up on the outside work and did these in the shop. Smelly but better results.
But when all this is done, they go together nicely. Fluting the angle in particular was hard as it is a very thick part - I ended up using the vise as a helper to fully squeeze the flutes (Vise also helpful in "unfluting" where part was "over corrected"). I'm pleased with results of the final assembly - one interesting part is driving the shop head of rivets on bottom of the angle into countersunk holes. The size 3 rivets are nice and (almost) flush, but the size 4's stick out a bit. Instructions make this sound acceptable as a seal will end up in this area but if necessary i can sand those down a bit later.
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