I was so disgusted yesterday that, just as we left, I jumped on the canopy frame and lo and behold when I checked it today, the shape is almost just right, I think! The fellow builders on the Van's Air Force Forum had given me some great ideas about how to do that but I didn't need them. The next stage is to put the frame in the canopy and mark the trim lines and begin trimming a little at a time, thus creeping up on the finish cut. We had to go get some more spring clamps before we could begin this process. When we had everything laid out, we decided to check our center line again and found that we were off a slight bit. In Image #1 you can see me with the cut off wheel beginning a cut. However this photo is staged because when I really began, I had huge goggles and a mask and ear muffs since I understand it can be really destructive if one of the cutting wheels comes apart. We put the frame down in the canopy and marked the place for the hole to accommodate the handle. We then drilled it with a #40 drill and enlarged it to a 5/8th's size with a Unibit. This however turned out to be too small despite what the plans say so we then used the next size increment and things worked well. As you can see, we have drilled our 1st hole in our canopy and no cracks yet. However it was quite hot in the hangar and this helped of course. I hope that this will be the outcome of all the rest of the holes we will be drilling. See Image #2.
