Got the canopy rails back from anodizing today. Very nice they are too. I riveted the two center rails together with AN426AD3-7 rivets as I felt the -6s called for by Vans were woefully short. Jackie then came and helped me out with drilling the assembled rail to the fuselage and fitting nutplates. I decided to fit K1000-06 (MS21047-L06) nutplates instead of the nyloc nuts and washers that Vans suggests. After all, how on earth would you get into the aft fuselage later on if you need to remove and replace the rail?
Tomorrow night I'll look at fitting the spacer and reinforcing angle to the F-807 forward bulkhead, and then we can start the scary process of butchering and re-building the stock Vans canopy frame to suit the Tom Clark fastback :-O
