The first step of the slider canopy construction is to drill pilot holes for the rollbar attachment bolts in the canopy decks. I measured many times to make sure these were located correctly:
Then I made the four spacers that sit underneath the canopy decks:
As delivered, the rollbar was about 1/4" too wide to fit the fuselage. The plans suggest that all you have to do is lean on it a little bit and it will magically assume the proper shape. Yeah right… I put all my 185 pounds on this incredibly stout piece of 1" chomoly steel tubing, which is designed to hold a 1700 pound airplane up off my head if it flips over, and it didn't budge. Surprise.
So next I went to the store and bought a big c-clamp, then made this little setup to bend the rollbar to the proper size:
However, even when I bent the rollbar inwards by several inches, it would immediately spring back to its original shape when I released it from the clamps. So, I measured carefully and clamped the rollbar to some sawhorses with the correct width figured in, and then Scott came over and we heated that sucker with a pair of torches until it was dull red:
Fire good! Obviously this destroyed the powder coat on the rollbar, so I'll have to take it somewhere and have it sandblasted and refinished. That's cool, though, because I'll be able to pick a new color that better matches the rest of the interior.
After a little bit of trial and error we were able to get the (somewhat burninated) rollbar to fit the fuselage perfectly. Thanks Scott!
Here's me drilling and fitting the bolts… you don't have to hold a wrench in your mouth for this part but I guess it doesn't hurt.
Bolts (without nuts) installed. Tomorrow I'll check edge distances and cut off as much of the overhanging rollbar foot as I can, to get it out of the way and make it look nicer.
