Jamie

Jamie

Well Known Member
Winter is fast approaching and I'm about finished with the fuselage kit and looking ahead it seems that the plans have you do the canopy next.

Since I'm building in the garage I have a difficult time getting the garage temps above about 65 degrees and obviously I don't want to cut the canopy at that temp.

I'm thinking of putting it off until the spring, which means that I'll probably get to electrical/panel/FWF before then. Does anyone see any problem with waiting to do the canopy? I'm thinking I'll do the frame next but put off bringing the bubble down to the garage until it's warm again.

The only problem I can forsee with this assembly order is that the fuse will probably be on the gear which means of course I'll have to use a stepladder for fitting the canopy. Anything I'm missing here?

Oh yeah...if it matters I'm doing a tip-up.
 
Space heater

Nothing a space heater can't cure.

Don't do FWF before the tip-up canopy. You will need the firewall recess OFF and access from the front in order to reach inside and insert/pull the tip-up hinge pins, which you will be doing MANY times. Sure, you could do this while lying on your back inside the fuselage, but that sucks.

And I think the whole "don't cut it when it's cold" thing is way overblown. I took some scrap from my canopy trimmings and I tried as hard as I could to get it to crack. It was cold. I used a regular drill bit (not a plastic bit). I did all sorts of nasty stuff to it -- but I couldn't crack it without smashing the crap out of it.

I don't think 65F is a problem, personally, and space heaters can only help.

)_( Dan
RV-7 N714D
http://www.rvproject.com
 
I have done two canopys ( no not the same plane) in the winter run the space heater when you are working with it and you will not have any problems if you drill it once with a regular drill bit use a uni bit for the oversize the canopy is not as hard as it seems Maine
 
Melted plexi

If you use a heat lamp, be careful. I put one under my slider while drilling some holes and the light was a little too close to the plexi and it actually started to melt the plastic.:( I now have a slight ripple in the canopy over the baggage area. Anybody know if there's a way to fix this? I figure if I heat it up again, I'll probably make it worse.
 
Thanks, guys for the comments. Dan, your comments make a lot of sense with regard to the firewall recess so it looks like I'm just going to stick with Van's assembly order.

Mike "Kahuna" Stewart let me borrow a natural gas heater that I still need to connect into my garage and that should help. Just not looking forward to paying the gas bills this winter...but I live in Hotlanta so I guess I don't have too much to complain about in terms of temps.
 
I don't know, I haven't worked with canopies yet, but I cracked the crap out of a storm window I was drilling for an Aztec, and that was WITH a plexi bit. Cutting/trimming should be OK, but be very careful drilling.
 
When I first started working on my canopy it cracked along the edge. I don't know how or when it happened, but lucky for me it was so close to the edge that it was eventually trimmed off. I can tell you without any reservation that this material is VERY different when warm vs. when cold. You can feel the difference when filing, drilling or just picking it up. It's also worth noting that the thermometer on the wall may not be a very good indicator of the temp of the canopy, as it seems to take a while to warm to it's surroundings. I did mine in the summer and still used a very small electric space heater under the bubble while working just to help things along. In short, if it were me I'd wait. There's a ton of other items you can work on. Fiberglass maybe??

Steve Zicree
RV4 Wiring
 
You must log in or register to reply here.