Still working on the prep work for getting the plexiglass canopy ready for gluing. I may have gotten a little ahead of myself when I made the 'big cut' so quickly, as you can see there was still plenty I needed to do before I can break out the sikaflex and attach my canopy. Oh well, no harm...other than having the canopy taking up room in the shop. I think I'll survive, I'm getting close.
One of the things I wanted to do before I start transitioning into FWF stuff was to better organize my hardware...namely, my AN hardware, this was long overdue. I should have done this sooner but really its been mostly rivets up to this point so it hasn't been too bad. I always have this internal argument with myself, I figure time spent organizing and cleaning is time NOT spent building an airplane. But, I do try to balance it out...some organization is certainly needed. Nothing is more frustrating than spending a half hour trying to find hardware that you have stuffed in a bag somewhere rather than in a nice, labeled parts bin. Since doing this for all of my AN hardware, it has already been so nice to know exactly where to go for the right bolt. Don't be like me, do this sooner rather than later....its worth it.
Builders, over the years, have infamously come to call ProSeal "black death" for obvious reasons and the blue protective plastic on the sheet metal "blue death". Here I am peeling the last of the "blue death" for my project....'THE' very last piece of this devil material! :) It reminded me how far I have come...how many trash cans I have filled with this stuff. I remember doing the wing skins using a water pipe and my forearms were throbbing as I rolled/peeled that stuff off. I'm not going to miss it. This is the second to last top fuse skin...what I thought was my LAST skin on the project, but I realized later that I have one more. The small one in front of the canopy.
Before riveting the skin in place, I wanted to revisit the aft fuse skin to get the three rivets on each side that I couldn't access solo during my first go. I had to remove the seat belt attach brackets to get to the rivets..the bolts were getting in the way of my bucking bar. I then quickly riveted them and re-installed the seat belt attach brackets along with the seat belt cables...and then finalized them to be done with that task. Let me tell you, this was my first odyssey of climbing back into the fuse...holy crap, that sucks! Just getting back there was a challenge. I am not a huge guy...5'9" 185 lbs and I had a hard time...once again, felt like I was doing my 'RV yoga'. I'm hoping there wont be many more reasons to climb in there going forward.
Of course, I had to sign the fuse skin before riveting, like I have done for several of the main skins. Notice I scuffed the surfaces with scotchbrite where I will again add ProSeal to the overlapping joints just like I have for all of my top fuse skins. Water tight, air tight, stronger and vibration resistant...
Last minute fitting and trimming of the rear plexi...I wanted to do as much (or all) of this as I can before riveting the skin. Just a little easier that way.
For the clearance in the corner between the plexi and the attach bracket, I cut a chamfer instead of notching it to fit. I didn't want an inside corner, even radiused, for a possible stress concentration. The skin will cover this so you'll never see it.
Last minute fit check before applying ProSeal and riveting this skin in place. Looking real nice, that canopy is sexy I'm tellin' ya!
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