Canopy

If there's an easier way to do this, I'm all eyes and ears. I hate this part, but the outcome is very cool.

Start by block sanding all 3 faces that meet the canopy, make sure they're flush.

Cut a piece of lite ply slightly longer and slightly wider than the canopy opening at the bottom.

With a block sander, sand the front and rear edge until it sits perfectly flush front to rear.

Holding it firmly in place, draw a sharpie line underneath on the edge of the fuse sides. Remove the bottom piece and cut to those lines.

Now place the bottom piece back in place and sand the edges until the bottom piece is more narrow than the fuse by the thickness of a piece of folded poster board, all the way from front to rear on both sides (it sucks, but it's not THAT bad, just tedious).

After you have achieved the fit you're looking for, cut the front and rear pieces and sand the angle on the bottom so they sit on top of the bottom piece nice and flush. Again, sand around the edges to achieve a slightly more narrow piece than the surrounding fuse.

After you have achieved the right fit, remove all the pieces and cut out the centers for lightening.

Lay down a piece of wax paper to fit between the canopy and the fuse, and install the pieces with tape. Go ahead and drill the front piece for the pins and install them. make sure you have a somewhat forward down angle on them or your canopy won't come off easily. Glue in the pins, then glue the front and rear pieces to the bottom. Go ahead and cut some 1/4" braces to hold the front and rear pieces in place (so they don't spring back). glue them in place, but keep in mind they'll be broken out later.

To hold the canopy down at the rear, you can go any of 100 different ways. I've done about 20 of them, but the one shown is the one I like best for glow.

First I take a couple of scraps of phenolic and lite ply and bond them together. they need to be about 3/4" wide and 1 1/2" long.

Make a notch on the canopy bottom just inside the fuse sides at the rear, so that the outer edge of the pieces ride against the fuse sides. Glue them in place, making sure they contact the 1/4" stringer on each side. Go ahead and glue a piece of 1/4" triangle stock (light balsa) to the edge of the bottom front to rear, this gives the actual canopy glueing area. now after everything is dry remove the whole thing.

Mark the fuse sides where the phenolic pieces extend. Here, I glue in a 1/8" piece of phenolic to the side of the fuse, and a piece of 1/8" a/c ply to the inside. After it all cures, check the fit of the canopy and make sure everything slides into place and lines up. Sand and adjust as needed.

Now make a mark about 1/2-3/4" down from the bottom of the canopy on the fuse side centered on the phenolic.

Slide a single piece of poster board between the canopy and fuse here to shim it, then drill and tap all the way through for a 4-40 machine screw. You may have to run the drill and tap through a few times to get it where it starts easily.

After you have it all secured, remove it.....