Sunday March 13, 2022
Canopy Countersinking, Drilling, Fitting (Canopy)
6.0 Hours

First today, I marked the trim line for the aft edge of the canopy. Then I trimmed it and sanded the edge.

Then I started countersinking the screw holes in the plexiglass. My process was to first countersink, using the #30 bit in the #30 hole. Then, I drilled the hole out to 5/32". This seemed to work well.

According to the instructions, the slightly over-sized hole in the plexi is important for temperature changes.

It took a while to finish all the holes in the canopy plexi.

Next, I took the rear window and placed it on the fuselage again. I drew a line corresponding to the aft skin, drew another line 1.25" further aft, and then taped to that line.

Then, I made the cut.

Next, I marked and pre-drilled the holes in the aft skin (#30) and the roll bar (#40) for the rear skin.

I fit the rear window into position.

And then lightly clamped it to the roll bar.

Then, I drilled the rear window to the skin and rollbar. For the skin holes, I just used the #30 plexi bit with the holes in the skin as a guide. On the roll bar, I drilled from the plexi to the #40 holes by sight. It worked out well.

I finished drilling all of the holes, then marked a line for the trim on the forward edge, removed the window, and deburred all of the holes in the plexi.

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