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[December 15, 2007]


Got a bunch of goodies recently. One of my final orders from Avery -- Plexy drill bits, rudder farings, washer wrenches, misc reamers and drill bits.


I also got a #40 ID 1/4" OD bushing from McMaster-Carr. This will be used to drill the elevators to the bearing on the horiz stabilizer. This sucker was like $20 shipped. Unreal, however, cheaper than screwing the part up.


Also a transponder antenna and a dual VOR/Glideslope coupler showed up.


I stopped by Harbor Freight this morning to pick up a ratcheting tie down to attempt to squeeze the frame a little. It was unreal the amount of cranking I had to put into this to get it to move. I really regret not going for the 2" web for the tie down, as that would of provided me with some extra leverage and more importantly more of a safety factor to the web snapping. Anyways, this worked out GREAT and my canopy frame fits like a glove on the fuse now.


Van's instructions really suck for how to line up the frame. The way I see it working best is the forward side being in line with the front of the top skin. I attached an angle across the fuselage, cocked back to match the angle on the top skin.



I then sit the canopy frame on the fuse, with the front face of the frame butted against the temp alignment angle. I also put the top channel on the get its position right.


The bottom of the frame needs to be trimmed to make room for the 1/8" thick angle. I marked a hole 3/8" up from the longeron.


With some fancy work from the dremel tool, I trimed the canopy frame.


To no surprise, I needed to trim part of the top of the F-705 bulkhead because of interference with the inboard angle.


Next was figuring out how to hold the angles into the right position to drill. The inboard/outboard position is easy, because it is just lines up with the side of the fuse. I ended up using two strips of 032 (to equal 063, or the thickness of the canopy frame) and drill it that way. Worked out great.


Next I spend some time with the vixen file and bench sander to taper the outboard end of the canopy frame base to match the contour of the fuselage.


Finally I attached the top channel between the canopy frame and the F-706 bulkhead.

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Last Modified: August 13, 2023