|
PmWiki /
CanopyFrameAmount of hours spent on canopy and frame: 109.5 August 31, 2010 - 1h Painted the roll bar and turtle deck black today so that they can be final mounted in the airplane. Got the screws, bolts, washers and nuts in, but need to buy a 3/8 inch short socket to torque the nuts to value. Will do that tomorrow. Somehow I lost my existing socket and can't find it anywhere.
 
August 21, 2010 - 1h With Narayan's help I installed the canopy strut brackets in the cabin today. Actually drilled them too low on the rails and had to redrill them higher since the strut head didn't fit. Need to clean up and close the two other holes somehow.
 
The brackets on the canopy frame got screwed on without problems and the struts themselves work beautifully (did a quick test with the canopy).
August 19, 2010 - 2h Primed and painted the canopy reinforcement parts and the canopy strut brackets.
 
Cleaned and primed the canopy, followed one hour later by some of the white spray paint I've been using on the inside of the plane.
For some reason some of the paint is coming off again. I wonder if it's the high humidity level outside where I do most of my painting. Have to redo some of these spots another day.
August 18, 2010 - 3h Riveted the canopy skin and the side skirts on the canopy frame.
   
August 16, 2010 - 3h Fabricated the parts for the canopy struts tonight. Lots of using the bandsaw, sanding wheel and scotchbrite wheels! One of the spacers moved when I match-drilled the #19 holes, so I decided to just do it again using the other side of the spacer as it will be sandwiched in between and nobody will ever see it.
  
August 15, 2010 - 4.5h One of the tasks I been holding off for a while now was drilling the side skirts to the canopy. So first thing today was getting the canopy frame and plexi bubble back on the fuse to do that bit of drilling. The bubble gets temporarily fastened to the frame with 3 screws on each side. Next was cutting the two pieces of aluminum that are going to be used as the side skirts to size and draw the hole pattern on them.
 
Basically you drill the hole pattern from the drawing onto the side skirts followed by match-drilling the skirts to the frame.
   
After that I took the plexi canopy off the frame and match drilled the #27 holes from inside the canopy into the side skirts.
After that I countersunk all the #40 holes in the canopy frame and dimpled the holes in the side skirts in preparation for riveting. The #27 holes got countersunk with for a #6 screw size. Next is deburring and priming all the parts and rivet them together. Since this involves the canopy skin as well I decided the dimple this skin as well now that I was at it. It's actually the last time I will ever need the C-frame again as all the skins in the kit have now been dimpled :-)
August 8, 2010 - 5h Worked on the canopy frame reinforcement braces today. There are 3 braces: a center brace that was pretty easy to do and two side braces. Bend the holes flanges with a notches wood block as Vans suggests in the installation steps. I drilled all of them to the WD616 frame and the canopy frame skin and manufactured the 6 clasps that will reinforce the side braces even further. I drilled the braces to the canopy frame on the workshop floor, but decided to put the frame on the fuse to drill the braces to the skin. That way I am sure that the braces do not bend the frame the wrong way. Primed all the parts and started to rivet the clasps to the side braces, but had to stop that due to the fact that the braces bend the wrong way and wouldn't fit on the frame anymore. I'll have to blind rivet the clasps to the braces later when they are riveted to the frame.
June 28, 2010 - 0.5h Since the UHWT tape let loose from the top canopy latch angle I drilled the rivets out, redid the tape and riveted it back in. The canopy latch runs better now and doesn't get caught in the loose tape anymore.
June 6, 2010 - 0.5h Got a 6-32 tap from the aircraft department at Lowes today and tapped threads in the holes of the roll bar (the ones that will be used to install the rear window later.
June 1, 2010 - 1.5h Dimpled the holes in the aft top skin where it gets screwed to the window.
Riveted the splice plateto the right half of the 631 frame and primed the whole thing.
 
May 31, 2010 - 6h I finished the canopy fitting and drilling today! Or at least I think I did :-) I do need to tap the roll bar holes for a 6-32 screw but that will come later. Today was mostly focused on making the fit of the aft window as good as possible. I did drill the holes in the canopy skin and wd716 tube out to #30 for CS rivets. The side show quite a large gap between the tube and skin, so I need to ask Vans how to best solve that. A shim probably?
 
Today was the day of taking both the canopy halves off and on a lot! To make the split on the roll bar between the two plexi halves nice I had to do a lot of sanding (first with 60, then 100, then 180, then 320 and finally 400 grid sandpaper). My bandsander was very handy to use at times as well. I did also countersink all the plexi holes in the aft window, followed by drilling the hole out to #29 and deburring to make sure no cracks will form.
 
  
Most of the gap is now approx. 1/32 inch, but unfortunately I must have sanded off a little too much of the aft window edge on the left side as the gap is approx. 1/16 inch there :-( Ah well, I'll survive I guess. As long as it doesn't rain in! The overall result looks quite nice. The split is also not exactly in the center of the roll bar, but I don't think that's going to be a problem.
I did notice that with all the work done on the back of the front canopy, the front edge has actually come up a little on the sides and the center. I might have to keep that down with a small tab before it gets fiberglassed over later on.
 
If I do get more time this week, I'm planning to put the canopy handle on the 631 frame structure and get the canopy latch lugs on before I will start fit the canopy frame side skins. May 30, 2010 - 4h Today I countersunk the front canopy holes, both on the 631 channels and on the sides. I first drilled a #30 holes in some scrap plexi and used the countersink tool to find the right depth of the countersink so that a #6 screw head would fit snug in the hole. I don't know what all the other builders were so nervous about, but this was really easy with just a standard #30 countersink. The following picture looks like the hole is not centered but that's just the picture effect. The countersinks are perfectly centered around the hole. After countersinking I enlarged the hole in the plexi and aluminum to #29 which seems to be sufficient for a #6 screw.
After that the front canopy is kind of done right now and could go to the floor to make space for the aft canopy. Michela helped me to lift the structure of the fuse as it is quite heavy by now.
Next I drilled #40 holes in the canopy frame (I already marked the positions yesterday) and marked and drilled holes in the top skin. I had to cut the side of the canopy a little more to make it fit in between the roll bar and the top skin sides. But after that the aft canopy window fits nice and snug in between the inside of the top skin and the 732A channel. Actually the fit is outstanding as I didn't have to exert much pressure on the plexi to make it sit snug against the top skin.
 
The rest of the time in the shop was spent drilling holes through the plexi. Vans tells you to start in the center both on the roll bar and on the skins and work your way outwards. Made a stupid mistake right away; ouch! I started to drill through the roll bar all the way with the 1/8 inch plexi bit, but you're not supposed to do that because these holes get enlarged to #35 and tapped for the 6-32 screws. Luckily I noticed after only 3 holes, so now I have 3 #30 cleco's in there and the rest #30.
  
Hopefully I'll manage to still tap a little bit in the #32 hole (or whatever it turns out to be with the plexi bit) so that I can get a screw in there. Else I might have to go to a 8-32 screw. Last pic is of the aft window all drilled. Tomorrow it is time to countersink all the holes and tap the roll bar holes. Also want to finalize the edges of the both the front and aft windows.
May 29, 2010 - 6h Long memorial weekend in front of me so hopefully I'll be doing a lot of work on the plane. Started with cutting the front sides of the canopy a little bit more to make the fit better and to make sure the canopy fits between the two ears on each side. This picture shows the right ear:
Next was getting the 631 channels to sit nicely against the inside of the bubble. Since I didn't like the way I bent these initially I took them out and bend the edges some more towards 90 degrees. This time the fit was much better and I clamped the two channels to the splice plate to do final drilling on them. There could be a little bit of a edge distance issue here because the two channels are a quarter of an inch apart.
  
After that I took the whole clamped structure of the fuse for drilling and clecoing on the bench. Next task was marking the locations where the canopy is going to be screwed to the channels and wd725 frames. I marked locations that would be similar on both the channels and the canopy frame. These holes were then drilled out with a #30 (I know Vans mentions to use a #40 in the manual, but I didn't see that until later. Since these holes get drilled out to #27 I believe this should thus not be a problem.
 
After that the canopy went back on for drilling. Vans basically tells you to use one of two methods to drill the plexi to the frame: 1) Drill through the plexi until you hit the metal and make a small indentation with the drill bit that will be drilled out later, or 2) drill the holes in the frame first and use them to drill a similar hole through the plexi (it is transparent after all!). I used a 1/8 inch plexiglass bit to drill through the plexi into the pre-drilled hole in the metal. It was very much like drilling in butter :-) Started with the holes on the top first to lock the bubble in place for drilling the sides. It turned out that the right side was cut perfectly to size and I could drill it to the wd725-r without any problems. The left side though was hanging over too much (about 1/8 of an inch too much) and had to be cut some more.
  
After all that was done, the canopy could actually be opened and closed with the frame. This looks so cool!
 
Next was the aft canopy. I already marked the cut lines a while ago, so that is what I started with now.
After that was done and the cuts were nicely sanded, this part will hopefully be finalized tomorrow. Did a lot of good work today even with 85 degrees F in the workshop :-)
May 27, 2010 - 1h More measuring and taping on the front canopy. This weekend I will cut some more of the front sides to make the fit between the frame and the ears better. I don't want to cut off too much at once because that will be disastrous of course...
May 16, 2010 - 6h Made the big cut today after measuring the canopy on the fuse and measuring again. First thing was to tape next to the cut line. That was easy with the yellow string: just put the tape exactly next to it and voila a nice clear line to cut.
Next was moving the canopy back to the table (Michela helped me with that for the last time). Put some extra 2x4's underneath the stabilize the structure.
Using a new cutting wheel in my drill I made the initial groove to guide the cut a little better and started cutting from the center to the edge, keeping the edges uncut for now until the end. And then.... the thing was cut in two pieces!
  
Leaving the rear canopy on the floor for now, I moved the front canopy back to the fuse by myself (this thing is a lot floppier now) to start marking the front and sides for the final cuts. The initial fit at the back is not bad, but probably needs some more trimming later on.
I did the front edge cuts conservative to make sure I wouldn't cut away too much as that would be an expensive mistake... After having cut away the front until the fit was good, I marked the sides and cutted first the right side off.
 
Then marked the left side and cut that down to final size too.
 
This all looks pretty good and next time I think I can start drilling this thing to the canopy frame after the final bit of trimming on the rollbar.
May 13, 2010 - 1h Some more cutting on the front of the canopy to get the bubble a little closer to the top of the canopy frame. It's now probably within half an inch or so and according to Vans that is plenty close to make the big cut. Used a piece of yellow string to outline the cutting line. Don't mind the black pen marks as these were from an earlier experiment.
And another pic to show the canopy from the front (why not? it looks so cool :-)
May 9, 2010 - 1h Did some more work on the front of the canopy and cut some more plexi to better follow the contour of the fuse. End result is okay; only the two ears on the side corners left to cut of and that should be it.
May 8, 2010 - 4h Finally the canopy got some cuts today for the first time. Michela helped me carry the bubble to and from the worktable a couple of times today. First move was from storage to the table:
I also draped plastic over the plane and engine to make sure the plexiglass dust wouldn't do any damage to either component.
The first thing that needs to be done is cutting away the clamp areas all around the canopy. You can clearly see two parallel blurry lines where the machine that forms the bubble connects the clamps; just above those lines (were the canopy is clear) is were the first cuts are made. The back of the canopy was done first so I laid out some painters masking tape to mark the cut line.
 
A note about the cutting tool; Vans tells you to use a die grinder with a cutting wheel (two are shipped with the finishing kit) to make the cuts, but I followed another builders advice (http://www.kalinskyconsulting.com/rvproj/canopyframe.htm) and used the wheel in my pneumatic drill instead. Much easier to hold and control and worked flawlessly. And so the first cut was made... first by lightly cutting a groove along the edge of the tape, followed by another two or three cuts to get through the material. I used ducktape all along to keep the cut piece of falling off prematurely.
The same process was basically followed for the forward and side cuts. It really gets easier after a while! But don't get to overconfident or else it's easy to cut too much...
 
After the side cuts were made as well, the canopy got laid on top of the fuse for the first time. This does indeed look very cool :-)
 
While the canopy was on the fuse, I marked the line for the first real forward cut. You basically have to follow the line where the canopy starts to slope up from the flat part; I went conservative the first time to make sure I wouldn't cut away to much.
  
After moving the canopy back onto the fuse the forward fit was much better. Following are some pics that show this.
  
The back side fit is not bad too.
What didn't fit well yet were the sides: a large gap (an inch or so) can be seen on both side.
 
The gap between the canopy and the rollbar is also considerable. Not easy to see on the picture but it seems to be between half inch and an inch. According to other builders this seems to be pretty common with a lot of canopies initially.
More cuts will hopefully make the final fit better. Tomorrow I'll continue!
May 7, 2010 - 4.5h I thought long about and decided to install the canopy release mechanism after all. Constructed the wd620 block and the two tubes that connect to the hinge bolts. Since these were steel I didn't know what was the right way to get the notches in the tubes, but my neighbor had an excellent idea: cutting wheel in the dremel. That worked fabulous and I drilled the holes with the drill press and the tube clamped.
Putting the release mechanism together wasn't difficult but it took some time to get it aligned correctly. Following are some pics of the process.
 
 
Tomorrow the time has come to start cutting the big canopy bubble...
March 6, 2010 - 2h Plan is to work on the plexiglass this coming weekend, so I cleaned up the shop a bit and cleco'd the skins back on and put the roll-bar back on the fuse.
April 26, 2010 - 1.5h Now that the paint in the cabin had nicely dried (I'd turned the temps up to 70 in the workshop during the day) I riveted and installed all the pieces of the canopy latch mechanism for the last and final time incl. all the cotter pins. Works very nicely!
 
March 4, 2010 - 2.5h I got the new WD725-L from Vans today so set off to get it onto the fuse and riveted to the WD716. The fit of this part was better, although the bracket that should sit flush against the C631 was not completely flush. A bit of hammering on my vise got this all straightened out. Drilling the holes through the 725 end bracket was tough, because I already drilled these through the bottom of the C631. So I drew the outline of the bracket, took both parts of the fuse and match-drilled them on the workbench. Next was match-drilling the 725-L front to the 613 bracket that was already riveted to the Wd-716. That was a breeze even with the parts on the fuse. After countersinking the WD-715 and spraying some primer on, these parts went together forever. Alltogether not too bad for a couple of hours of work. Next is really the plexiglass bubble; maybe I can warm the shop to 80 degrees this weekend....
February 24, 2010 - 1h Worked more on the canopy frame and have come to the conclusion that I need to order a new WD-725-L since the fit is pretty bad with that crack in the side rail. Just ordered the 30 dollar piece from Van's and hope that the shipping cost will not be more than the cost of the part...
February 20, 2010 - 3h Managed to get 900 hours on the plane today; up to the magical 1000... I drilled the side rails to the Wd-716. Had to make sure that I didn't drill through the skin so took the cleco's off to peel the skin back a bit.
  
Also drilled the bottom holes of the brackets at the end of the side rails to the C631's.
Next was fitting the wedges I made last week in between the wd716 and 613 angle to drill them together.
 
When all that was done, I took the pieces apart and countersunk holes in preparation for riveting. While I was at it, I countersunk all holes on wd716 as well.
  
Tomorrow I plan to rivet the siderails to the wd716, so did some priming in preparation.
Very soon now I'll start cutting up the plexiglass canopy to fit it on top of the frame!
February 15, 2010 - 3h Finally some time on the canopy frame again. I managed to crack the left canopy side rail :-( I tried to fix it by cutting the crack out and stop-drill the end; let's see if I can patch it up with a small piece of alu riveted on top.
In the meantime I got the new C631 ribs in as well, so I clamped it to the roll bar next to the left one already there.
 
Oh and did I say the I got my new Dynon primary and backup ADAHRS in as well :-) Cool stuff! After the side rails got matched to the side of the fuselage, I clamped and drilled the brackets at the end of the side rails to the C631's.
 
Have to travel a couple of days for work again, so hopefully I can continue (finish?) this over the weekend.
January 24, 2010 - 4h Worked on fitting the canopy C631 pieces and the side rails to the fuselage. Doh! I forgot I used the right C631 for the roll bar a while ago, so I need to order a new one. Unfortunately these can only be ordered in pairs and they are expensive (75 bucks)! Started to take the right weldment out, which is really tough.
January 23, 2010 Jeff Vaughn, a friend from my EAA chapter 240 came by this afternoon to check out the project. Lots of good tips and tricks to do things better or different. He did tell me that I should take my gear weldments out because some of the bolts seem to be too short; they need to be 13A's instead of 12A's. So I'll order some of these bolts and redo the weldments. I should probably also file the holes in the weldments some more to make it easier to put the wingbolts in.
January 21, 2010 - 1h I drilled the canopy frame gooseneck hinges today. First pre-drilling them through the hole on the inside of the front fuse. Since I didn't have a 1/4 inch angle drill bit, I peeled the skin off and drilled using a normal bit. Just enough to start the hole. If you're wondering what those black lines are on the rib: me trying to put a sharpie in the hole to mark the goosenecks in the dark :-)
  
Next was taking the canopy frame off, taking the skin off and drilling the holes through on the bench. Important to keep that drill bit exactly straight! After that I used a 11/32 bit to make the holes bigger and then finish it off with a 3/8 reamer. Bushing fits very well in that hole.
 
When both holes were done this way, I put the frame on the canopy again and put the bolts through the inside. Without the skin that wasn't too easy I can tell you :-) But the thing is hinging wonderful now.
  
January 18, 2010 - 6h I haven't worked on the plane for a while because of a work trip last week, but today was full steam ahead with the canopy frame again. I have been taking the WD-716 weldment frame and 702 skin on and off the fuse today to come up with the best fit possible. Van's tells you to keep about 0.032" space between the 702 and 771 top skins.
 
The left and right side of the frame (where it is supposed to sit flush with the fuse) needs quite some bending to make it nice from the initial fit.
 
First the 702 skin gets drilled to the aft frame tube (after having drawn a centerline on it). But at the sides there is quite a gap between the skin and the tube. I have to see if this is supposed to be (email to Vans).
 
The frame gets duct-taped to the fuse to make sure everything fits tight, followed by drilling the C614 splice plate on the front ribs. At the same time the hinge angle gets drilled to the front ribs as well.
  
After some deburring, scotchbriting and priming, the splice plate and hinge brackets get riveted to the ribs. The front side of the rivet holes get countersunk for AN426-AD4 rivets.
 
Last but not least this whole thing gets duct-taped to the fuse again. Drilling the hinges to the fuse is next!
January 9, 2010 - 1.5h Finished the canopy release mechanism. It's a very simple mechanism, but works very well: pull the yellow knob and the release latch comes out of the slot holes and push on the knob and they go in again and (in the future) would lock the canopy to the fuse.
January 5, 2010 - 1h Worked on the canopy release bar mechanism and clecod the steel links and the brackets on. The two links have to be bend a bit to fit on the release bar. Started to look at the tube that connects the release bar with the side handle, but I need a #3 drill for that which I need to buy at the hardware store.
January 2, 2010 - 3h Continued with work on the side handle. Using the paper template I cut yesterday I made a metal template and drilled the holes in them which I used to match drill the skin. The slot holes were drilled with a #30 cut with a thin cutting wheel in my dremel. Used some files, sandpaper and scotchbrite to make them look nice.
  
Next was clecoing the actual side handle and brackets in and making sure the fit is good in a closed and open position.
  
The fit looks good. There is an eight of an inch hole at the end of the slot, but I think I can probably fix this up later. Putting the yellow knob on the end of the handle (where it is grabbed to open the canopy on the inside) was easy. I also drilled a hole for the spring and wire that will hold the lock handle under tension, but somehow the spring seems to small and doesn't push hard enough. This might also be because the resistance of the two handles in the angles is quite high. Have to see how that works out.
Next was the canopy release bar that goes behind the seat back. The hooks fit nicely in the holes I cut in F705 bulkhead earlier; no bending necessary. So next was putting the C611 umhw blocks on and clamping the structure to the bulkhead for drilling.
 
While the fit looked really good when this was al clamped, with the blocks drilled and bolted on, the hooks are too high and don't fit in the slots anymore!
Maybe it will help to turn around and switch the 611 blocks. Will have to do that tomorrow. Else I will have to buy some more blocks from Vans and redrill them :-(
Edit 1/5/10: It seems the canopy release bar fits fine when it is bolted tight to the bulkhead. I might have to file the pins a little bit to ensure a good fit in the slots.
January 1, 2010 - 3h First a happy new year to each and all of you RV builders and flyers! Hope you all have a great year; personally I hope to get my RV in the air :-)
First finished drilling the hinge blocks together with the F644 front deck rib. I clecod the top skin on to make sure the 644 rib would be in the correct location and match-drilled the holes through the rib. I kept the 644 ribs in place with a couple of 426AN4 rivets.
  
Started on the canopy side handle mechanism. Files, sanded and scotch-brited the handle parts C607 and C609. These hook into each other so spent some time on making sure that fitted well. Also fabricated the two F712 angles were the handle parts get sandwiched in between. I used a 0.016 inch spacer to keep space for the umhw tape that will go in the sandwich as well.
 
Last thing today was drawing the side handle cutout template. This will be used to draw the holes were the 712 angles get riveted. Tomorrow I will work on drilling and filing out the slots were the handles protrude outside the fuse.
December 31, 2009 - 2h Some more work on the canopy frame hinge blocks today.
And mounted all the parts on the front deck ribs to find the location for the hinge hole.
This was followed by match drilling the 1/4 inch hinge hole through all the parts.
December 30, 2009 - 2.5h Made the 732E brackets that go on the side of the channel and drilled and riveted them to the channel. After that they got drilled to the frame.
Also started with the canopy frame on the front where it hinges to the front deck. Match-drilled holes in the C617 and C618 umhw blocks with a #10 plastic drill bit.
And here's a picture of the front deck and canopy hinge part. The fit doesn't seem to great...
I need to call Vans soon to find out how I can leave out the canopy mechanism and what bolts to replace it with.
August 9, 2009 - 3h Reached 800 hour mark today! Match-drilled the 732F spacer to the 732A channel and dimpled and countersunk holes for 426AN4 rivets. Took all the canopy parts off the fuse and cleaned and primed them. Riveted the canopy latch brackets to the bulkhead. One rivet was hard to get to from the front so I decided the put it in from the back.
 
August 8, 2009 - 1h Drilled the remaining screw and bolt holes in the base of the canopy frame.
 
August 6, 2009 - 1h Put the brackets on the wheel to make them fit with the curving of the fuse.
Drilled the channel to the canopy frame angle and to the 706 bulkhead and 744 skin.
 
I clamped the canopy frame to the brackets and skin; tomorrow I drill those screw holes when I have some time.
August 4, 2009 - 2h Drilled the brackets to the fuse with a 1/4 inch drill bit for AN4 bolts. Took some time and some boelube to do this nicely. After that I clecod all the top skins back on to be able to make a nice fit of the brackets with the skin.
 
August 3, 2009 - 2h Riveted the canopy frame together tonight. I also drilled the 610C brackets to the fuse and put the frame on top of them to do some measurements.
 
Here are the brackets in closeup; you can see that this time the fit of the frame is perfect!
 
August 1, 2009 - 6h Today I completely drilled the canopy frame. I won't bother you again with all the details (you can find those below from the first time), but here is a pic of the drilled frame.
Did some deburring of parts as well. Tomorrow I countersink the outside holes and prime.
July 31, 2009 - 1h Canopy frame all over again. Now that the parts have come in with the finishing kit, I'll hammer out the frame again this weekend. Today I drilled the two large entry holes with a 1.5 inch holesaw and did some deburring of parts. This time I make sure that the frame will fit on the fuse by clamping the brackets to the fuse where they are supposed to go and measuring the frame on the brackets. That will work much better than the guess work of last time.
 
June 20, 2009 - 2h Spent some more time on the canopy frame today and figured out that the thing is not wide enough and won't fit onto my fuse :-( I guess there's nothing else to do then order new parts from Vans and see if I can get them into my finishing kit which is shipped next week.
Here are some pics of the brackets that I riveted together with the keeper rivets called out on the plans and how the parts fit on the fuse.
  
And here are some pics that show the cabin frame is too small. First pic is the left side and second pic the right side. With the seat backs it will be impossible to make this work. I'll just have to do it again.
 
June 10, 2009 - 0.5h Finished riveting the cabin frame today. Went pretty fast with the squeezer and just a little slower with the pop rivet gun. Looks nice on the plane!
 
June 9, 2009 - 1h Finished deburring and dimpling the rollbar pieces and primed all of them. Then riveted the two aft and fwd parts together with the center plate. Last but not least I cleco'd on the sides.
  June 8, 2009 - 1.5h Lots of deburring and dimpling of the rollbar parts. Hopefully I can prime tomorrow and rivet it together after that.
June 6, 2009 I finally got to see George Fischer's beautiful Rocket at a pancake breakfast at Cross Keys,NJ this weekend.
 
Flew there with Nathan's Cessna 120. Was great fun!
June 5, 2009 - 1h Finished drilling the aft and fwd pieces of the canopy frame. I decided to drill some more rivet holes centered in between the holes that have too little edge distance on the aft side. That way it will come out strong enough.
 
I placed it on top of the fuse with the brackets in place and it seems all to fit. Will have to measure more later.
May 31, 2009 - 1.5h Started to drill the canopy frame parts together. I think I might have to do the inside again as the edge distance on the side pieces is too small; or maybe I can fix it by having an extra rivet in the center of the wrong ones. Have to think this over a bit.
 
 
May 22, 2009 - 1h More parts making for the canopy frame. It's not much, but it's something :-)
May 21, 2009 - 1h Slow progress with the new job and all, but I got another hour in tonight. Worked on making parts for the canopy frame (drwg 39).
Oh and here's a picture of Argo next to the wings enjoying his bone. 
May 24, 2009 - 1h Measured the width of the cabin at the location of the canopy frame to be 42.5 and 3/8 of an inch. Since the two brackets on the sides have a combined width of 3/8 this means the canopy frame halves have to be trimmed to 21 inch each (quarter of an inch of each). I also noticed that I cut a whole out of the wrong half and so I'll have to order a new one from Vans; I'll ask them to add it to the finishing kit. Drilled the grid of 1/8 inch holes in each 631C plate.
|
