Today was a small milestone; I glued the upper edge of the skirt to the canopy. As usual I am a month behind where I thought I would get this done. I took most of the day preparing the skirt and canopy for the glue. I used 3 layers of electrical tape on the canopy edge. I had planned to use fishing line as a spacer, I used Super Glue to attach the line to the inside edge of the skirt, after a test fit I, the dried glue reacted with the Plexiglas of the canopy. I removed the fishing line and glue!!
I learned a few things; first when you think you have thought trough the whole process there will be something you forgot, for me this was to tape up the outside of the skirt. It was too late once I had applied the bead of Sika so I had to just deal with cleaning up the places the glue touched, since there is no primer there it cleaned up easily. Second there is nothing like a second set of hands, I enlisted my wife to help install the skirt (Thanks Anita). With the canopy on its stand I applied the Sika then with me on one side and her on the other we set the skirt in place. First the aft edge, then I clecoed my side while she held her side away from the glue. Then I move to her side and clecoed it up. Then I worked the edges to get the depth I wanted and then started the fillet process.
Even with 3 layers of tape I had some primer sneak under the tape so my edge is not as nice as I would have liked. I finished the glue 90 degrees to the canopy, my thought is I will use proseal to make a fillet between the skirt edge and the canopy; this was planned and should cover any places the primer made my line uneven. It is nice to have this done.
The primer is really runny; I applied it to the skirt with the skirt upside down on a table, this let the primer run to the top edge of the skirt and some places to the outside. If at all possible try to let the top edge not get primer it will help in the fillet process.
