Aft canopy attach - scrap .025?

[John Courte]

I'm nearly at the point where I'm supposed to drill and attach the aft canopy. Two questions:

1. Should I rivet the aft top skin on before drilling the canopy? Everything changes when you rivet and if the canopy winds up misaligned post-drill, I think I'd be rather upset.

2. The plans say something like "using some scrap .025, lay the aft canopy skin out flat and trace the curve" then cut this out to use for the backing strip to sandwich the plexi between it and the skin. I don't know where they think I'd get a 5'x2' piece of scrap .025, but that makes me wonder, does that backing strip have to be all one piece? Two pieces? As many short pieces as I can cobble up from actual scrap .025, which I've got precious little of, since my kit is a QB?

I can't seem to find anything on here regarding this particular section, but maybe my search-fu is weak today.

I do have a spare elevator skin, but that's a little thicker than necessary, but there's still not enough 'scrap' there to do the whole curve.

thanks,
-John

 

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fewer pieces

no reason to try to make the strip as a single piece since there are no screws under the channel. i made four pieces, two on each side. fitting anything much longer will be especially challenging and gains nothing... just backing / trim strips... they are visible though, so you will want to make them uniform and paint them to match the interior.

as far is drilling the holes into the plexi i recommend waiting until you have riveted the top skin on.

 

[John Courte]

Thanks Stephen. I've probably got enough scrap to do 3 strips on each side.