We decided that we wanted to rivet the canopy between a piece of aluminum strip and the forward bow on the slider frame. It seems that all the other areas on the canopy are sandwiched between two pieces of metal other than the forward bow area.
We took poster board and taped it across the canopy and traced the forward edge of the plexiglass to get a curve for fabricating a canopy trim piece. We removed the poster board and then by hand drew another line about 1/2 to 3/4" from the first line for a nominal width. We then cut out the pattern for the trim piece. It turns out to be about 64" long so I had to order a 1'x6' sheet of 0.032 aluminum from Van's. This trim piece will be covered by the fiberglass trim on the windshield when the canopy is closed. The trim piece should allow the rivets to spread the load over a greater area to help with expansion and contraction, we hope.
We started measuring the hole patterns for the side skirts to help us determine what will be dimpled or countersunk. The forward canopy trim piece will problably be dimpled with the plexiglass machined countersunk. The plans are not really good at making these side skirt holes obvious. It appears that most folks use fiberglass to form the rear skirts. We'll make that decision when we get to that point.
