Brief Description: Canopy Frame and Skin, Aft Canopy Latch
I talked Pete Timbie into coming over and helping me again today. I don't think that Pete or his wife realized it would be an all day effort! We worked on the plane for 9.5 hours and then played a little music afterwards. I started the day by spraying the gray paint on the upper and lower C-712 angles. I left them to dry and riveted the VS-411 brackets to the F-705 bulkhead. It was my first riveting in a LONG time and I bucked all six rivets. Good fun. I started to make the C-710 pushrod and realized that I had neither a #3 drill nor a 1/4-28 tap. I sent a text to Pete and he brought over his tap and die set. Disaster averted. Pete went to work on the canopy frame while I riveted the C-712 angles to the fuselage. I think my dimples may have been a bit off, as the flush rivets were not perfect and took some "massaging." We clecoed the C-702 forward top skin to the canopy frame. The line that I had drawn on the center of the aft tube was visible through the holes in the skin so we drilled and clecoed the skin from the center out. There is quite a gap on the outboard holes between the skin and frame. I need to do some research on how to proceed. I think some people just install a "dummy rivet" in the hole. Pete beveled the edges the hinge brackets to assist them in sliding between the delrin blocks. We put the frame/skin assembly on the plane and butted the skins together. We have a bit of difference along the bottom edges of the skin at the fuse. I recall that "He Who Shall Not Be Named" had the same issue. I need to review how he and others fixed that issue. Pete and I moved on to finishing the pushrod assembly. He measured and cut the tubing and I drilled and tapped the ends. He installed the rod end bearing and clevis and attached them to the idler arm and latch. He had previously installed the spring on the release arms and through the bulkhead. The spring wanted to ride up over the latch arm, so Pete used small aluminum rivet washers on each end of the spring. It worked well.
