Yesterday I primed the various cockpit covers and panels, and today I painted a finish coat. The finish coat came out looking good; I didn’t have any runs in the paint, and the finish is even and “wet” looking. It’s still drying, but I’m pleased with how it came out. Much easier to paint on the bench vs. inside the cockpit.
Tonight I spent time deburring parts for the cockpit. These are all the covers and plates that fit into the cockpit and make up the seats, center console cover, flap motor cover, and various panels in the baggage compartment. My plan is to get these primed tomorrow, and then finish chapter 42, and final paint them in the coming weeks. Then I’ll be back to the canopy, or maybe work on both chapters in parallel. I’ve found it’s good to have a couple of mini projects running concurrently, so I can switch between them if I need to pause one, or just need a change of scenery.
Over the course of the last week I have been making progress on fitting the canopy to the canopy frame. I marked out the amount that needed to be trimmed from the aft edge and then cut it using a jigsaw with a diamond blade. The blade melted it’s way through the canopy without any problems. With the cutting done I scraped the edge with a thin piece of metal to smooth out and round the edges.
Today I installed the finished canopy frame onto the fuselage and checked all the clearances. I was relieved, but not surprised, to see that the frame fit very well and had not discernible twist. The only real issue is the gap between the cockpit rail and the bottom of the canopy rail. For some reason the canopy rail is not completely flat, and the gap along the rail is not uniform. At either end it’s about 1/16 and in the middle it’s 1/8, and it’s the same on each side of the canopy.
It’s annoying because the skin will also be bowed and have the same gap when the canopy is closed. I pinged Vans, but there’s not much I can do at this point. I may try to make a new skin for each side to ensure the gap is uniform, but I’ll hold off until I’m completely done with the canopy.
Tonight I finished installing the canopy latch system. This will help position the canopy frame while I fit the canopy. Everything fit fairly easily and the whole system works well.
Today the engine arrived! FedEx delivered it with lift gate service which made life easy. I placed the engine on a dolly I had built for storing the forward fuselage when that arrived last year. Then the driver, my neighbor Brad and I helped pull and push it up the driveway. I used a rope and pulley system to help guide it up and act as a safety, and in a few minutes it was safely in the garage.
Over the last two evenings I finished riveting the canopy frame together. For forward section went together ok, and I was frequently checking the twist as I riveted. There were a couple of interesting rivets, but generally it was fairly easy. I was able to fairly quickly rivet on the side rails and the aft frame. Once done I couldn’t resist setting the canopy on top to see how it looked.
Tonight I finished riveting all of the holes common to the canopy skin and under structure. It took a while but it was easy work. Setting the structure on it’s side I could easily reach both sides and control the riveting easily.
Tonight I worked on riveting the forward section of the canopy frame. I was careful to check for twist throughout the process, and occasionally manipulated the frame to correct any error.
Today I countersunk the base of the forward canopy frame. It’s weird that the plans have you do this step now, vs doing it before it’s riveted to the frame. There are clearly some out-of-step issues with the plans in the canopy frame section, but I’m hoping it will still work out ok.
