More Canopy Stuff

Time: 1.0 hrs

I drilled a few extra rivet holes for areas along the canopy join that looked to need it. Peter C. had emailed me and gave me a few photos of what he did and it looked great, but I wondering if I need to do the same. The skins fit pretty tight against the canopy for most of the length of the join. The only area where it bulges a little is at the bend towards the rear of the canopy. I put in 3 extra rivets in this area. I made a simple jig so that I could drill out the holes without having to measure each time. The spacing is the same all along the canopy join. It does change a little as you move past the front of the windshield post up to the firewall. The one main issue I have doing what Peter did is that I have the parachute cables running through the canopy (he doesn’t). There is one place where putting a rivet may cause an issue with the cable and that’s the last rivet on the canopy join up to right under the windshield post. So if I were to put rivets in all along the join and up to the firewall I would have one missing rivet at that point. The other option would be to stop the extra rivets at the windshield post. I also looked at a few of the Slings at Torrance TAF and they only had a few rivets at the bend and the join looked good so I’m thinking I’ll be OK.

My only concern is that the sika will cause the seemingly good fit to bungle out a little. I came up with a plan for that as well. If this happens I can either finish drilling the holes… not fun with wet sika, but still doable. Or I came up with a plan to lightly clamp the areas between each of the rivets until the sika has dried.

Now I’m just waiting for my 3.2mm x 10mm rivets. I noticed that the 8mm rivets are a bit short for the main join along the sides. I think they would work fine, but 10mm look to work a bit better. I found in one of the pack lists that (80) 10mm rivets are called out in the canopy kit. The pack list for my canopy kit doesn’t list them though so I’m assuming that those 80 rivets would be used for the canopy join. I went to Torrance TAF any they don’t have any. If I want to use the Gesipa multi-grip rivets that are used everywhere on the plane then I have to order 5000 of them. I found another rivet that may work. I’m hoping the head size is the same as the Gesipa rivets because I want it to look the same. I already know that the cherry rivets from Aircraft Spruce don’t look the same, the head is a bit larger. So I’m hoping that when the rivets finally arrive in a day or two that they look like the Gesipa rivets.

Added in 3 extra rivets at the bend in the fuselage

The top curve fits really well and there are a ton of rivets here so I shouldn’t;t have any issue with this area… Oh now I just jinxed it.

So here’s plan B if the sika causes the area between the rivets to bulge then I can clamp it down until the sika dries.