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Canopy and Windshield
So now the side skirts on
fitted. It time to tackle the rear skirts. On this project I had some
unexplained luck. They fit the first time out. What's my secret? Don't
really have on other than I think the height at which I set my canopy spine
at had a great impact on the job. I also used a bit of duct tape to pull the
skirts tight while drilling them.
The skirt is installed no. The little catch pins engage the catches after some bending and they seem to fit pretty well. I put a little doohickey fairing over the spine track. I used the pop rivets specified in the manual to attach the rear skirts. To do it over again, I'd tap and screw these points in as the paint is already cracking around the rivet heads. Screws would look better I think. FWIW, no metal stretching or shrinking was needed. Just lucky on this one. Moving forward, it is time for the windshield skirts/glare shield. These are pretty easy. I made mine large to create shade over my glass cockpit instruments and to give a nice place to throw my hat and glasses. Basically, you put the left side on, put the right side one, trim the excess out of the middle and them join the two halves there with a doubler. Then the new one piece assembly is removed and painted underneath, ready to installation. don't forget to make any holes in the thing at this time. I put in a Cold Cathode Fluorescent (CCFL) tube flood light and GPS antenna. I put my Garmin GPS 35 up here. It sits low in the black carpet I have on my glare shield. To rivet this part on, I found it easier if I removed the canopy track assemblies so I could remove the windshield bow. This made it a piece of cake. After it was riveted in, some combing was added to the exposed edge. I used 1/4" soft AL tubing, slit it slowly with a die grinder, and glued it one using JB weld. This dramatically stiffened and beautified the part. Last this was layer of black carpet.
This shows the tubing glued on and where the two sides were joined. The five holes in the center are for the GPS-35, the vent holes in the boot cowl insert have not yet been made. Below, the carpet is being attached. The carpet is from Wal-Mart's auto department. It's about $8 a roll, conforms nicely to odd shapes and holds up to the sun VERY well.
This is the finished product. You can see the three little vent holes in the front. I will put a little computer fan in one of them to take avionics warmed air and defrost the windshield with it. More on Canopy page 3
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"Sadly,
artificial intelligence will probably never be a match for natural
stupidity." |
