Canopy Installation, Part 3

Part 2 of the canopy installation installment ended with my unsuccessful attempt to repair a hairline crack in the forward cross tube of the canopy frame.  After I broke that externally sleeved repair, I planned on implementing an internal solid rod sleeve.  I had the common sense to also order some tubing as well that could also serve as an internal sleeve...and that is what I ended up going with as shown below.  The first picture shows the 4.5 inch internal sleeve drilled and cleco'd half way in place.  I did use countersunk blind rivets as shown in the next photo.

A final shot of the repaired butt weld area that is no longer welded!  I would add that the forward canopy bow now fits perfectly with respect to the instrument panel and provides the prescribed clearances.

Forward canopy bow with correct clearance from instrument panel.

View looking aft of the forward canopy bow.

Once the debacle of the broken butt weld was behind me, it was a quick matter to proceed with the fitting of the canopy to the frame and fuselage.  The first few photos below show the canopy laying in place prior to duct taping into final position, holding the lengthwise and lateral dimensions as called forth in the plans.

 
Now visible is the blue painter's tape running along the forward and aft canopy frames.  The forward bow will be marked for drilling by pressing the tape onto the bow by pushing on the canopy so as to leave an impression.

 

Next, the canopy was secured with duct tape into final position with the aforementioned measurements in place.

I was not satisfied with the impressions left on the forward canopy bow with the blue painter's tape so I ended up switching to traditional masking tape and was much happier with the results.  Below, I am drilling the #40 holes in the canopy bow at the prescribed 2-inch intervals.
 

 
After pre-drilling the forward canopy bow, it was time to re-install the canopy and drill the plexiglass. Shown below is a shot of the drilling of the rear canopy bow.

And finally, the canopy gets to perform its porcupine impression with a myriad of clecos.

Next up were the canopy skirts, which get dimensionally positioned along the length of the canopy with some duct tape and then the drilling and cleco'ing process resumes.

 

Canopy Installation (and a Set Back), Part 2

Before continuing with the installation of  the canopy attach angles and other subassemblies, it was time to prime and top coat the canopy frame.  Below is a shot of the finished product.  Note the forward tube is only top coated at the ends where it might be partially exposed.  I plan on installing the glare shield which should hide the underside of the cross tube.  The top side of the cross tube should be hidden by the fiberglass fairing.

The next steps involved fluting, drilling, deburring, match hole drilling and final installation of the forward and aft canopy attach angles.

Next, the canopy frame was fitted to the fuselage with the obligatory 1/8 inch cardboard padding between the canopy frame and the fuselage, shown below taped into place.

As I was measuring for the 7/16 inch clearance between the forward surface of the canopy frame and the instrument panel, I found that I did not have sufficient clearance.  After some bending, I finally arrived at this conclusion below:

Not a very good picture, but there is a hairline crack in the butt weld!  After speaking with Vans builder support, they suggested an external sleeve which I implemented as shown below, with 2 tubing halves, each with 2 rivets, and further bonded with ProSeal.
 

Now I found that I had even less clearance with the .035 inch thick external sleeves.  In short, the canopy frame would again NOT clear the instrument panel!  Back to the aggressive bending to make this thing fit....which led me to this new conclusion:

When the weld broke completely through, I removed my external sleeves and to my surprise found the factory's internal sleeve had taken a permanent set from my vigorous bending.

 The next step will involve another internal sleeve, made of rod stock and 4 threaded and countersunk machine screws.  Hopefully that arrangement will survive the additional bending that is going to be required to get the canopy frame to have sufficient clearance with the instrument panel!  The saga continues.