Splitting a Sliding Canopy- How to Cut?
 

On my TF Giant Mustang, I've custom built a sliding mechanism for a sliding canopy. I'm adding Styrene formers inside the canopy, but while assembling my sacrificial test canopy, I wasn't happy with the canopy cutting process.

What I did:

- Rough cut the split canopy with scissors/x-acto
- Bonded Styrene former to one half, leaving a bit of extra overhang stock
- Sanded the overhang down to be flush with the Styrene former
- Clamped the matching Styrene former (for the other half of the canopy) to the one just assembled, using 1/8" plywood spacers (so I don't glue the two formers together)
- Bonded the second Styrene former to the other canopy half, leaving a slight overhang
- Sanded it down to be flush

Doing this, I have very nice fitting canopy halves, but I what I didn't like was sanding a total of about 1/8" stock of the canopy- maybe I'm too picky.

Anyway, has someone come up with a method to do this without wasting material? Another idea I had was to bond the two formers to the canopy before cutting with some very thin spacer to prevent gluing to each other, and then cutting the canopy right between the formers. The problem is I can't think of a way to cut a precise line between the formers- an x-acto blade doesn't cut easily and doesn't stay on track very well.

Any ideas?

RE: Splitting a Sliding Canopy- How to Cut?
 

A razor saw, the kind with the wide blade, is probably the best for this kind of work. It makes a thin cut that does not remove much material and the wide blade keeps it from wandering. Work slowly and all that should be needed is light touchup sanding of the cut surfaces.

RE: Splitting a Sliding Canopy- How to Cut?
 

How about some pictures on how its done too? I will be doing this in a couple months on my bearcat.

RE: Splitting a Sliding Canopy- How to Cut?
 

Ya' know, some things should just be so obvious. I guess that's why the word "oblivious" is so close :D

Thanks, that will probably work great.


I'll post some pics of my entire sliding canopy setup later...

RE: Splitting a Sliding Canopy- How to Cut?
 

Here's a shot of mine. I used canopy scissors only, worked slowly, and block-sanded the cut faces.


greg

RE: Splitting a Sliding Canopy- How to Cut?
 

Looks good, Greg.

What will you do to keep the bottom edges of the canopy tight against the fuselage? I'll be fiberglassing musicwire to the inside of the canopy (a test piece worked great) to give it some inward spring.