Yesterday and today I worked on prepping the canopy rail inside section. This is where the canopy will be attached. I spent a couple of hours getting the turtleback blended into the canopy rail line too. As I’ve had to go so wide with the canopy the turtleback can’t be parallel towards the rear. I’m going to wait until cowl time with the thought that this may need correcting depending on the required width at the cowl top. Meanwhile I’ll build that back end structurally and add to it if needed.

Next up were a few trial fits again and more sanding particularly at the front for a blend. I’ve ensured that the ledge is now deep enough relative to the canopy so I have room to fit it without impinging on the side lines. As I’ve said the right side is pretty good and the left has the bulge that is pretty minimal I keep telling myself.

Yes so more time making that ledge nice and smooth. Then I measured up 1.2″ and cleaned off the top section all around so I have an even height to work with. I may lop off .2″ of that to get a clean edge.

The process for getting the canopy bonded on will be three cures. The first one is below. Hardshelling the ledge. This is just micro that I have peel plied as you see below. I want to start with a good surface.

Next up, possibly tomorrow, I will add 2 plies of BID and again peel ply and let it cure. At this point I will have a good base to flox on the canopy. The idea is that I will have left enough room or ledge width for a good bond and a flox squeeze. One issue is that I can’t clean off the excess when I do this part of the job. There will be some VERY careful excess flox removal later.

Above and below is the ‘ledge’ peel plied ready for the next step.

I’m getting closer to ‘installing’ the canopy now. I can more easily see all the steps. A big one is once the canopy outside is done, getting it cut off the fuselage. That will be an interesting day.