The hinges now need to be secured to the center of the longerons which are only about .7″ wide on the flat top section. The canopy needs to be held in its exact place then opened so that I can drill out the 4 3/8″ holes per hinge.

John C. again came round and gave me a hand lifting the canopy into position closed. Then I added hot glue around the outside hinges.  I will make it all good and flush after the strakes are built. For now there is quite a lot of overhang on the hinges that will need to be reinforced. I can see a few plies of BID under here and on top of the stakes for the rear hinge and blending in for the front hinge.

Then we opened the canopy just a little and I got my hands in there to secure clamps. We checked that the bead of glue on the outside hadn’t moved even though with all the weight the hinges tend to pivot upwards. They obviously sit down again once clamped.

I then grabbed ‘long stuff’ and made a clamping setup to hold the canopy open.

Here it is down the back where most of the weight is resting on that block. I later went around and added a few screws and a bit more timber to make myself feel better about how precarious it all looked!

The hinges took a while to drill out in the right places. I seem just not capable in getting screw holes to line up perfectly. A good thing this is not a metal airplane. I do get them pretty close and structurally in the right spot, or it gets fixed.