Now that the canopy frame shaped and the rails drilled, it's time to start the actual plexi work.
I couldn't resist laying the bubble over the closed canopy frame to see the actual shape.
Real nice view.
One of the things I wanted to double check before starting to do any trimming was to ensure the sides of the front fuselage skins came high enough to cut of parallel with the horizontal square bows on the canopy frame.
There is plenty of distance left but I will be conservative when doing the cutting.
Next up the task list is drawing a centerline on the canopy bubble. I started first by using a string and putting it over the bubble. Then measuring the halfway point and drawing the point in the middle of the canopy. By doing this at various locations, you define the centerline marking points. To be absolutly sure, I also attached a line over the canopy bubble length wise and centered the bubble underneath.
As you see, the string ncely touches my center mark on the bubble.
Now just bringing down the cord defines the straight line on the bubble as well.
Then Vans tells you to find the best possible fit for the frame in the bubble.
This is a very vague description of what you need to achieve. The goal is clear, the way to reach the goal is less evident.
What you want to check in particular is that the middle top bow lays as good as possible in the bubble. The front bow will not be perfect. The most important is the positioning of the middle top bar and the rest as good as possible.
Update 12/2020 after the big cut: I can tell you now already that the plexiglass front side will be much more flexible to work with than it is now. Here where the bubble is still in one piece, it looks like it's non flexible at all. Once the cut is done, the front will adjust better and adhere to small gaps that you see now. If you position the center bar well, you will see that on the left and right of the canopy latch, you have a gap. I spent way too much time overthinking it and in the end it came out perfectly.I could even stick my finder underneath when it was uncut.
then I marked the hole location for the canopy latch. Be precise, this hole defines the position, there's not much playground after this hole is cut. Take your time, measure three times.
Then it's time for drilling. Oh boy this was scary. I started with a modified regular drill as I didn't have my plexidrills yet. Then enlarged it with a unibit. The unibits are much safer to drill in plexiglass as they don't "bite".
My hands were shaking as I was afraid for cracking.
When I looked closer, I noticed a line in the bubble and almost got a heart attack. When looking closer, it was a wrinckle on the other side plastic that showed a line. But my hearth stopped for some seconds.
then I deburred and sanded down the edges to 600 grit to make all silky smooth.
here's a close up. succes and one hole less to drill in the bubble.
