Help! I recently started work on the tip-up canopy on my 7A. Last night I trimmed the excess flange and mold clamping areas off of the edges of the canopy and placed it on the fuselage for the initial fitting. I was not totally happy with what I saw. Along the left side of the plexiglass canopy fits really well. The first photo shows the left side.
The left edge runs generally flush to the skin and side rail with a gap of about 1/2 inch. It takes very little force to press the canopy up against the side rail. You can see the gap in the photo from below looking up.
However the right side is a different story. If you look at the shadow of the edge in the photo below you can see that the edge flairs or bows out near the black tape.
The photo from below shows it even better. The gap is 1 inch to 1.5 inch along the right side. My biggest concern is it takes quite a bit of force (~ 5 lbs) to press the canopy edge down flush to the side rail on this side. I don't like putting that kind of stress on the canopy.
Did I get a bad canopy? It clearly is warped on the right side but is this common? I did a couple of searches on the forums and could not find other reports of something like this. I'm not sure I will be able to make this fit well with the skin with this kind of distortion. There is still a fair amount of trimming before the big cut. Will the canopy somehow fit better in this area as the trimming progresses?
I noticed some distortion on that side when I first unpacked the canopy but I didn't know enough to question it further. Should I build-on or should I be talking to Vans now about the problem?
The left edge runs generally flush to the skin and side rail with a gap of about 1/2 inch. It takes very little force to press the canopy up against the side rail. You can see the gap in the photo from below looking up.
However the right side is a different story. If you look at the shadow of the edge in the photo below you can see that the edge flairs or bows out near the black tape.
The photo from below shows it even better. The gap is 1 inch to 1.5 inch along the right side. My biggest concern is it takes quite a bit of force (~ 5 lbs) to press the canopy edge down flush to the side rail on this side. I don't like putting that kind of stress on the canopy.
Did I get a bad canopy? It clearly is warped on the right side but is this common? I did a couple of searches on the forums and could not find other reports of something like this. I'm not sure I will be able to make this fit well with the skin with this kind of distortion. There is still a fair amount of trimming before the big cut. Will the canopy somehow fit better in this area as the trimming progresses?
I noticed some distortion on that side when I first unpacked the canopy but I didn't know enough to question it further. Should I build-on or should I be talking to Vans now about the problem?