Jur's RV7 Aircraft Factory
2917 hours and counting
Some decisions in life are bare of any obvious logic

A moment I have been waiting for for a long time... final rivetting of the slider bubble to the canopy frame.

Final install of the canopy with cleco's and verifying the alignment of the slider with the windscreen. I installed additional nylon spacers under the rollbar and the gap which was there before is now neglectable. What remains will be easily covered by the fibreglass fairing.

Another view from the back side.The windscreen sits still slightly lower on the center but no issue to fill that with some extra fibreglass cloth.

Overall a good fit on the intersection and also a nice alignment with the forward top skin. This took a lot of sweat and way too long timewise to get it the way it's in this picture.

Started by rivetting the reinforcement brace to the side skirts using the pneumatic squeezer. Rivetting them on finally defines the curvature on the side skirt.

Then started pulling pop rivets on the top row, fixing the reinforcement cover strip to the bubble and frame. Fortunatly I did not need any washers between the bubble and frame so it made this a walk in the parc.

Top row, all done.

Then continued from the top down alternating sides while pulling rivets. 

As last I pulled the back side rivets but only did half of them. The other half will be used to make the custom made fibreglass rear skirt fit the canopy shape. It will be easier to hold it in place when I will sikaflex the rear skirt onto the canopy.

One the skirt is glued to the canopy, I will set the remaining rivets and cover the holes up with thickened epoxy resin.

With the canopy rivetted on the canopy frame and the side skirts attached,it's now time to start one of - for me - the most feared parts of the canopy construction  : the rear skirts.

I quickly decided early in the canopy fitting stage that getting the perfect dimensions everywhere on the forward rear top skin would be almost impossible. I was more worried on the sides and the front than actually on the absolute precision in the back. I noticed the passenger 45° point to be a little lower than the skin, and the top to be slightly higher. On the right side, the fit was better and could be worked away with spacers between the frame and the canopy. On the passenger side, the amount of spacer would have to be too big and the rivet would not attach properly.  So early on, I decided to go with custom made fibreglass skirts. I had never made fibreglass parts before in my life and I have to admit it looked like an impossible task at first to make a professional looking large 1 piece part.

I highly recommend the article by Larry Larson on Kitplanes magazine before you get started. Very usefull information for newbies. Read the article in this link. There's a 2 more on finishing and on painting in part 2 and part 3.

To start of, I wanted to get an idea what the rear skir would have to look like and "how bad" my shape actually is. I cut the delivered stock material skirts and tried to tape them to the closed canopy.

It quickly became very obvious that shaping the aluminum was no option at all.  I used the skirts to draw some lines on the fuselage top skin and canopy to get a better idea where the epoxy would have to end.

Next I put electrical isolation tape on the line defining the shape and tested how to fill the opening between skin and canopy. A simple cardboard with ducttape will do the trick. The picture shows just one strip in place but I closed it all down.

Next, I put some strips of transparent packing tape all over the surface and used packing paper from the kit to protect the canopy and fuselage. Fibreglass resin goes everywhere when you apply it. It's a mess and hard to remove later so take your time to protect your valuable plane. Everything you see in blue below is covered with tape.

After adding the tape, I started to smoothen the gap and transitions using modelling clay (the cheap stuff you can buy anywhere, nothing fancy).

Leaving it at this for now to dry and cure. The surface will become light orange when it's fully dried out. I tried to make the surface as flat and smooth as possible. You can sand this later so no worries if you have a little too much in one place or the other.

5 minutes later, you got yourself a fixed side skirt. It looks really good.

From the outside, the alignment is perfect and the bottom line sits nice and snug against the side of the fuselage skin. Some UHMW tape will seal it off and make things even thighter.

then installed the top row of screws that attach the canopy to the side skirt using screws and nuts. Didn't put a lot of pressure on these. I didn't find a real torque indication for these so put them hand thight.

Outside view.

and a view from the back.

Finished the passenger side in the same way and also nice alignment here. This thing is ready for some rear skirt construction.

Noticed the gap in the front between the rear end of the top forward skin and the rear skirt. There will be some epoxy work there to close that gap but I'm confident it will work out fine.

Continued working on the clay molding to shape the rear skirt canopy transition from canopy to rear top skin.

Made the same filling on the passenger side and then put the F-792 doghouse in place. I will use this as a template. It means the inside gap will be a bit larger than the original but it it proofs to be too large, I can still add some epoxy and sand it down on the inside. I first tried to make a copy of the doghouse with some tin can material but it was a mess and I gave up and decided to go with the original piece. instead.

They clay starts drying but it's a slow process. Duct taped the doghouse it in the perfect position and continued closing the gap.

Looks good !

Nice smooth transition all over.

As this had to dry out. I decided to make some test piece as Larry mentions in his part 1 article in kitplanes. The piece can be cut and used later for the elevator tips so it's not lost work.

I tried to do the same thing as on the plane. Put electrical tape on a wood board and taped some clear packing tape over it. Then I added wax over it and a layer of PVA release film.

I did not make any pictures during the process of laying up the fibreglass as it's a complete mess. Applied 4 layers and then added peel-ply on top.

After cleaining up...