September 18, 2005

I decided to make the canopy skirts again after much fretting, so I set about that task first. I need to get this canopy wrapped up while we still have the warm weather here in Michigan.

This time around, I did it with the canopy fully closed for the upper three quarters of the skirts, and then I opened the canopy right up to pull the bottom bits remaining nice and tight. I am really glad I did them again, as they have turned out damn near perfect. I can close the canopy, and there are no gaps! Great stuff! Here’s a couple of pics.

Here’s the bottom of the left side. See how I made the skirts long enough so that they lined up with the other skins on the fuselage. It’s little details like this that finish off a job.

Once all the skirts were done, I took the whole canopy apart (again) to paint. I took the frame outside and sand blasted it. I cleaned up all the other parts, made sure everything that needed dimples were dimpled, and all the holes were the right size. Here are some of the parts primed. This used up the last of the primer we had. Time to go get some more. I don’t know why this picture turned out so crappy.

Here’s the canopy frame hanging up. This is a tough part to paint as you have to wriggle around a lot to get it fully covered.

During the week I have to come by the hangar to paint colour on all these parts. Then they can all be rivetted together! Woo hoo, the canopy is almost done.