At 03:35 PM 5/30/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Dave Morris wrote:
>
>> Then I bought a canopy, already in the frame, finished, painted, and
>> broken-in, and messed up my plans.
>>
>> Now my choices, it seems, are:
>>
>> 1. Sand off the paint from the canopy frame and tack on some 1 inch
>> tapering foam/fiberglas extensions (yechhh)
>> 2. Build up a 1" extension on top of the wooden fuselage longerons to seal
>> the gap
>>
>> I think I like option #2 better. Does anyone have a good reason why I
>> should NOT cover up the wooden stringers by adding the extension? Other
>> than needing to "harden" the area where people climb in and out of the
>> plane, is there any reason why I couldn't add a foam/fiberglass extension
>> on top of the wood?
>
>
>Dave, I'm not sure why adding to the canopy is a "yechh" in your
>opinion. Is it because you'd rather not work on a 'finished'
>piece?
>
>Adding to the fuselage sides will make for an already high climb
>over point, even higher. The hoop gear (that you are
>installing) is a bit taller than the MKII gear. It's quite a
>climb.
>
>There is a detail in the plans that calls for masking off the
>'roll bar' and laying a piece of cloth over the canopy, to lap
>on to this masked off area. This produces a small lip to fare in
>later with micro, making a real clean canopy-to-fuselage
>connection. This detail is only shown at the rear of the canopy.
>Since you are using the forward hinge arrangement, and since you
>might be re-working the canopy, you can continue this detail
>all around the canopy, making it have a better seal and
>appearance.
>
>Pat
After removing all the old hinge and fastening hardware from the canopy and
shaping the forward turtledeck to mate with the canopy, I can finally see
what you're talking about. I'm gonna do just that... I'll glass in some
foam under the left and right edges of the current canopy so it will still
have something hard to rest on, and extend the outside down beyond the
foam, making a lip all the way around that will hopefully mate up smoothly
with the fuselage sides.
I guess I'm lucky that Nate's measuring skills and mine are a pretty good
match, because at least the canopy is the same exact WIDTH as my fuselage!
That could have been a nightmare. So far, so good!
Man, working in the garage in Texas in the summer is hot work... I lost 4
pounds yesterday glassing the fuselage bottom!
Dave Morris
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