Canopy Construction Photos
The @#$%! Canopy
The roll bar (and support strut not shown) were easy.
And so was the slider track.
Bending the canopy frame side bows. First, make templates of the shape of the left and right fuselage to guide your bending. This is vastly superior to trial and error.
I made bends with hardwood blocks in my vise. This tends
to dent the inside of the side bows, but it allows precision in
placing the bends where you need them.
Here is the result of many frustrating hours bending the canopy frame. Eventually, I had to cut 1 inch off of each aft bow to get everything to come into alignment.
Once the aft bows were cut, I fabricated the wooden spacers to hold the frame in the exact lateral alignment that I wanted. I'd highly recommend this even without cutting the frame down, because it saves time not having to clamp the slider tracks in place to check fit.
The aft bows are temporarily held in place with steel plugs (cut down bolts) and FAA-certified duct tape.
The forward bow alignment looks good. You can see the aft bow alignment as well. Before I cut them down, they extended well outside the extension of the aft skin.
Frame completed, aft track is drilled to the fuselage in two
places (clecoed from below). Frame rolls smoothly on track,
and just clears aft skins.
At this point, I contemplated why I had to cut the aft bows
shorter. It became more clear when I attached the side
tracks and found that I had to trim them on an angle on the aft
portion onsiderably more than called out in the plans.
Apparently, the fuselage is narrower on my Quickbuild than
normal. Probably only 1/4", but it makes a huge
difference.
I bet someone at Van's in the Phillipines couldn't get the transversal member (seat back brace)-- sorry, don't have the part number) to fit, so they just cut it shorter, drove the rivets, and went home, knowing it wasn't their problem any more. This is a significant snafu in the kit, the second I've experienced, after the mis-drilled spar.
Warm weather means canopy cutting time. Here is the patient, ready for surgery.
Cut the skirt with an abrasive disc in the die grinder, then burnised the edges with a ground-down jig-saw blade... slick and fast! After every cut, I did this treatment... even for rough shaping cuts.
Preliminary fit of canopy frame, many more cuts to come!
Everything in position, clamped and weighted down.
In position on fuselage, drilled and clecoed to frame
Drilled center and protected finish with paper.
Canopy and windscreen in place, cut to fit perfectly, except for a 1/16" adjustment I needed to make to the canopy frame... which broke at the aft attachment!!! Oh well, back to the welding shop. A tricky weld, no doubt because the frame is match drilled to the canopy. I had to cut 1" off of each aft bow previously, so I found a welder who is experienced with the alloy.
This is Nestor, proprieter of Jetstream Welding at YVR. He's highly recommended, and the only one I could find to weld 4130 steel.
Here is a handy tool for holding the nuts that attach the canopy slider tracks. It's an old bike wrench which I adjusted to hold the nuts and bent it to the right shape to reach under the fuselage longeron..
Taped down skirt prior to drilling.
Completed side skirts and trial fit of cardboard aft skirt which will be the matrix for a e-glass layup.
No gap on side skirt (left).
And no gap on side skirt (left).
Meske tip-up slider parts kit.
Slider stop mechanism (bottom) and prop-rod clip. Prop-rod clip is modified from supplied kit in order to allow clearance of aft skin.. I cut the top aft part of the slider track open on both sides. When slider stop is released, the entire canopy can then be lifted clear, a real servicing advantage. I also think it will allow the canopy to be jettisoned in flight, if required.
Canopy stop showing cut-out right roller track.
Left canopy track showing cut-out.
Aft canopy slider rail showing cut-out.
Canopy lock and handle on pilot's side.
Another handle on passenger side is useful when using the tip-up mechanism, since the release mechanism and clip are on the passenger side.
Fiberglass/e-glass Aft Canopy Skirt Fabrication
e-glass layup used for fabricating aft canopy skirts. A sheet of plastic laminate is waxed and used as a substrate, making the bottom surface smooth.
Once cured, I cut the two skirts from a template I had copied from Van's patterns.
Then I tack-taped it into place on the aft fuselage and canopy. The left skirt fit perfectly.
The right skirt needed to be trimmed to eliminate a ripple. Shown is the cut at the 'high point' of the fuselage. The two shims at the top right help to make a smooth transition from the side skirt.
Once everything fits, then duct tape is used to hold everything down and provide a break line for later trimming after 3 more layers of e-glass are added.
In retrospect, I should have just used the layup as a substrate, waxed it or used mould release agent on it, then layed up 4 layers of e-glass on top. It would have been much easier to release everything then, rather than peeling two overlapping layers of tape. Nevertheless, the principle is the same.
E-glass layups
Rough Finished skirt before final filling, sanding.
Aft skirt riveted in place, ready for primering and final
sanding.
Fast foward several months to windscreen fairing fiberglassing.
Time consuming, fiddly and messy. Eventually everything came together nicely. I pigmented epoxy black, just in case it could be seen from cockpit above black-painted edge of windscreen.
Adjustable Canopy Fit:
Here's what I would do in future to make the sliding canopy frame adjustable.
These two pics show how my fuselage shape differs from another builder's. The cardboard template was made from my friends fuse, and then I laid the template alongside mine. It shows about a 1/8" gap at the seat back position on both sides, but it's flush near the roll bar and also where the rear turtledeck skin meets the longerons.
I also made several measurements of different RV widths at the roll bar and where the aft turtledeck skins meet the longerons:
1. 42 3/4 " 40 11/16"
2. 42 7/8 " 40 7/8"
3. 42 1/2 " 40 7/8"
4. 43" 40 3/4" (my RV-9A, QB fuse)
Clearly, the big variation is at the roll bar position (which is not set by any structure). The (up to) 1/2" difference at this position can make a large difference in the canopy fit!