I broke my canopy returning from Airventure last year, and it's been fixed with duct tape ever since. I finally got around to making a new one. I don't have a hangar so I had to find a weekend with good weather, and this was it. My friend Dave Plathe helped.
This time I decided to go with a canopy from Todd's Canopies, rather than the Sonex material. Todd's material is supposedly more flexible and less prone to cracking, so I thought I'd give it a try.
In photo 3 you can see the old canopy laid over the new canopy material. The blue painter's tape shows where I mad my first cuts. Note that it's well oversized. You can always remove more material, but you can't put it back!
All the cutting was done with a cut-off wheel on a Dremel hand tool, and it works PERFECTLY! Go slow and keep the blade as deep into the material as it will go, to prevent it from jumping out of the cut and damaging the canopy.
I spent about 7 hours working on it today.
80 degrees, so shade is important when you don't have a hangar!
