Canopy « Matt's RV-7 Project

Archive for the ‘Canopy’ Category

Canopy work aborted

Saturday, March 31st, 2007

After putting some protective tape over the end of the slider frame latch tube, I flipped the canopy over and laid the frame inside.

The goal is to get the frame aligned on the previously marked centerline, in the fore-aft location that results in the best fit along the center spine tube. Then you mark the location of the latch tube and drill a 5/8" hole. I got as far as marking the hole location, but the temperature didn't get up nearly as high as I thought it would, so I had to give up on drilling/trimming the canopy for another day. Bah.

In an effort to find something else to do, I dug up the subpanel pieces, dimpled the top rib flanges, and clecoed the whole works into the fuselage.

Then I deburred the forward top skin, which I hadn't yet bothered to do. I dimpled where I could reach along the edges, leaving the holes along the firewall undimpled for now – the cowling attach hinges still need to be match-drilled there, much further down the road. Then I packed up the skin and drove over to John's to use my DRDT to dimple the rest of the skin. Not a very efficient use of building time, but it felt like a good day to spend a couple hours driving.

Somewhere in there I did some more filler work on the left horizontal stabilizer tip fairing. I've had this clamp for at least ten years and I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever used it.

Also, I stopped at Lowe's and tried to buy a new belt sander, but they were out. Bah.

Posted in Canopy, Empennage, Fuselage, Tip fairings |

Marked canopy centerline

Thursday, March 29th, 2007

You're supposed to draw a centerline on the canopy before you start fitting the plexiglass and slider frame together. I measured and marked center points on the front and rear canopy edges and stretched a piece of fishing line between them.

However, I didn't have a great way to make sure the string was centered as it went up and over the hump in the middle of the canopy. So, as is my way, I totally overengineered the problem by deploying a laser. I made this lashed up rig and duct taped my shiny new laser level to it in such a way that it projected a beam across the entire top of the canopy.

Here is the laser in action. For twenty-five bucks how can you go wrong? I love new tools. It took a bit of fiddling to get the beam straight and normal to the canopy surface – actually the reflection of the beam off the canopy and onto the wall made it pretty easy to figure out which way to go in order to hit it straight on.

It was hard to get a good picture, but basically all I did was nudge the string until it sat right under the beam, then drew a sharpie line along the string. Simple.

The finished product. The line is actually pretty wavy because I was freehanding it and it's drawn on the wrinkly protective film, but all that matters is that it's located on the real centerline of the canopy.

I also spent some more time bending and tweaking the canopy frame. I talked to Van's on the phone this morning and was told that as long as the frame is at least 1/16" in from the fuselage sides, you can shim the canopy skirts however you need. I'm 1/16"-1/8" everywhere except the rear corners, where I can't come in anymore without fouling the frame on the aft top skin when the canopy opens. It seems like I should be able to make the aft skirts bridge that gap, though.

Posted in Canopy |

Misc stuff

Sunday, March 25th, 2007

I spent the whole day in the garage but didn't take many pictures. I guess I didn't actually get all that much accomplished – mostly I puttered and cleaned up the garage. It was great to be outside in the nice weather though.

One of the pre-tail-mounting chores I've been meaning to do is drilling the holes for the strobe and nav light wires that will go through the vertical stabilizer spar into the rudder. I picked the same location as Dan for much the same reasons – with the taildragger there aren't many other good choices for where to run these wires. I drilled a 5/16" hole for the strobe cable and a 3/16" hole for the nav light wires. Both holes are a little oversized so I can use a few layers of shrink tubing and some RTV to protect the wires from chafing.

Another day, another round of filling and sanding empennage fairings. I'm just doing a little bit every work session, fitting the glass work in between other tasks that are more fun.

I rearranged the garage a bit, and made a little table out of a sheet of plywood and a couple sawhorses. This is where the canopy is going to sit while I work on it. Yes, I've decided to work on the canopy some more before I put the airplane on the gear and mount the engine. Matthew convinced me that it'll be easier to get to it while it's down low and not high up on the wheels. Plus it seems to be warm enough these days to start thinking about working with plexiglass again.

I got out the canopy frame to make sure it still fits – yep:

Posted in Canopy, Empennage, Tip fairings, Vertical Stabilizer |

Too cold

Sunday, November 26th, 2006

It's not warm enough in the garage to work on the canopy, so I moved it back into the house until summer. I'll work on the firewall-forward stuff instead.

Posted in Canopy |

Family visit

Sunday, November 19th, 2006

My family was in town visiting this weekend. My little brother Adam looked over every inch of the RV-7 project, and Al was nice enough to give him a demo flight in his RV-6A. He doesn't look like he enjoyed it at all…

While they were out I snapped some photos of this F4F Wildcat that was parked in the hangar. This particular airplane has a very interesting history.

After lunch, Adam helped me get the fuselage turned around. To do this we had to roll it out onto the driveway, which generated some very surprised looks from the people in the car that happened to drive past just then.

This orientation will make it a lot easier to work on the canopy and firewall-forward stuff. Just for grins we put the canopy bubble on top of the fuselage. It's going to need a lot trimming to make it fit well.

While my dad was in town, we used his Jeep to fetch a 4×8' sheet of 3/4" plywood from the hardware store. This will be my temporary working-on-the-canopy bench, since the canopy bubble is way too big to fit on my real workbenches.

I also bought another space heater. Next weekend I'll see if I can get the temperature in the garage up to the magic 70° mark so I can do some canopy trimming. If not, I guess I'll have to postpone any further work on the canopy until summer. Stay tuned…

Posted in Canopy, Misc |