[N316RV]

I am building an RV-9A tip-up. I am having a difficult time getting the skin on the tip-up section of the canopy to fit correctly. The center holes of the frame and skin do not easily line up. I really had to tweak things around to get clecos in. I trim front edge of skin to fit well with forward skin and drilled holes in hinge arms of the frame. I removed skin from frame. When I reinstalled it, it fit poorly. I started looking at why it was so difficult to get on the frame in the first place. It appears that the holes get closer to the front of the frame nearer the center. I have heavily fluted the frame to attempt to pull them back so they would line up with the skin. This has helped some, but things still do not line up very well. I feel I have fluted about as much as possible. To make matter worse the frame is not straight across the front. It seems to come to a point at the center front. Looking back, I could have just drilled holes in between the existing holes at the center and created new holes in the frame since the canopy fillet would cover this, but I can?t do that now due to the fluting. Is there an issue with my frame or are they all this way? Anybody else have similar issues?

Thanks
Alan Jackson

 

[rv9av8tr]

Wow.... I just finished building my T/U canopy and had no problems with the skin holes fitting to the weldment frame. Your frame looks out of alignment because of all the fluting done. Seriously.... unless you can un-flute that channel, it looks to me that you'll need to start with a replacement frame. The only parts I had to flute related to the canopy were the rear channel rib halves and the two side rail weldments (to get them to conform to the fuselage curvature).

 

[DGlaeser]

Tweaking is required

Looks like it's over fluted. Flatten out the fluting as needed to reduce the bow. The frame is very 'non precision' due to the thick channels and welding. I did some clamping and bending to get mine the way I wanted it, in more than just that area. The thickness of those parts is to provide stiffness, not strength, so tweak as needed to make it fit. In the end, the stiffening kit is what really stiffens it up.

 

[Tbone]

I did not have to flute the forward braces either, not sure if it will need to be replaced. I have had some sucess in "un-fluting" some areas where not as much was needed. My suggestion would be to work on something else and give that area a break. It is a bad way to start on the tip-up but from my experience you have not seen nothing yet! You will, later in the build, think back and say that it wasn't that bad. Good Luck! I'm waiting on warm weather before I make the cuts on the canopy myself. Maybe I should keep that luck for myself?