Here's the method I used to do my canopy skirts. It's kinda long but it worked very well.
First get all the holes drilled through the canopy and frame. Take the canopy off and stash it out of the way for a while. Drill all of the holes through the bottom of the side skirt to the canopy frame. On the hinge side, I used a few flush rivets to hold the hinge to the frame temporarily. You'll probably need to trim the bottom edge of the side skirt to match the cockpit rails, but try not to give up too much material since it might be needed at the top. I next drilled and clecoed the skirt to the cross piece. I found that the shape of the flange left something to be desired, so I cut off the top couple of inches and will graft on some angle once everything else is done. Once this is clecoed in place, I took about a dozen little spring clamps and clamped the upper skirt to the canopy frame. Don't worry about the area aft of the rear seat. Next, take a pencil and wittle the first half inch or so flat on one side. This flat side will ride on the underside of the canopy frame while the tip marks the inside of the canopy skirt. I wittled the pencil until the first half inch was showing lead on the wittled side. This way the thickness of the pencil doesn't screw up the location of my line. I tried very hard to keep the pencil perpendicular to the skin as I went so that the line would stay where I intended. I only marked to the rear of the back seat bulkhead. I then removed the skirt and made a new line with a sharpie a half inch above this one. This line is the cut line. I cut along this line and then took my time getting it real fair and smooth. This line needs to be nice because the bending tool is going to ride along it. After it was all deburred and polished, I clamped it to a table and used the Avery canopy skin tool to gradually bend the edge. You'll want to practice on some scrap first and be aware that the tool will try to ride out away from the edge. Work slowly and check the fit often. You'll want to put the canopy on for fit checking. I used a few of the AACQ rivets to hold the canopy in place while fitting. I used a strap duplicator to locate the holes in the canopy skin. For best results I ground down the stap duplicator to make it as thin as possible. Once I had what I wanted I took the whole mess apart and repeated the procedure for the aft section. The idea behind doing the aft section last is that all the bending of the main section will move the aft section around. The very tail end of the thing needs very little bend. I should add that the first skin I did got ruined because I used the Avery instructions suggestion for measuring 3/4 inch rather than the 1/2 inch that I ultimately used. Since the measurements were taken with the canopy OFF, when the canopy was put on it pushed the bend out (and up) so that the holes would've gone right through the bend lines. On the replacement skirt, I used 1/2 inch and the holes wound up going right through the middle of the flange perfectly. Once everything was clecoed together, I spent A LOT of time carefully trimming away material where the skirt meets the tailcone to get a good fit. It was very tedious, but it came out very clean. Others may have a different method, but my skirts really came out much better than I had expected based on the horror stories. Good luck and feel free to email me directly if anything needs clarification.
P.S. the Avery website has the tool on sale right now for $14 !!
