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Date:  2-18-2016
Number of Hours:  5.00
Manual Reference:  
Brief Description:  Canopy Prep Work

Started work on prepping the canopy and skirt for assembly. This is my first experience with an aircraft canopy, and I confess that it is very intimidating. My trepidation stems from horror stories about difficulties builders of another aircraft design, have experienced with canopy assembly.

The inside of the skirt was sanded with a course sanding disk in a pneumatic die grinder, to remove the fiberglass overlaps at the front and rear of the skirt. After several rounds of sanding and trial fits to the fuselage, the skirt fit to the fuselage fairly well. Three, 3/8” thick wood blocks were placed between the rear fuselage formers and the skirt stiffener to position it according to the supplied drawing. The skirt was centered left/right for the best fit, then marked relative to the fuselage for future reference. There are a few gaps that I think “hope” will improve after the bottom of the left and right sides are trimmed.

The cut line for the bubble was marked on the skirt, one inch below the upper edge of the skirt. The bubble was set in place, centered left-to-right, and adjusted so the forward bubble edge aligned with the forward cut line on the skirt; then the cut line was transferred to the bubble.

A couple of saw horses were clamped together and padded with towels, creating a sling to support the bubble while cutting and sanding. The bubble was removed from the fuselage, placed in the sling, and the inside was covered with packing foam to protect the inside surface.
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