Last night I finally finished painting the cockpit area and the canopy frame. It took a lot of touch-up coats to ensure all the surfaces were covered, and it was more time consuming than I anticipated.
The last thing I did was strip off the primer I had painted on the outside of the forward canopy skin. I had painted this in a somewhat absent-minded moment earlier in the canopy frame construction. The aft part of the skin is painted mat black to minimize reflections on the canopy.
With the painting done, I peeled off the paper and tape, and was happy with the way everything turned out. It’s far from perfect, but it’s adequate for me given my limited experience and sub-optimal painting environment.
To keep it out of the way, I moved the frame back onto the airplane, then set the canopy onto the workbench. I then countersunk all of the holes along the trailing edge for #6 screws. I used some vinyl tape on the countersunk cage which helped stop any rotation and scratching.
