screws vs rivets in canopy frame?

[Joe Casey]

I have read a bunch of posts regarding the various methods of attaching the plexi to the frame, and a ton of broken plexi stories. I know there a quite a few canopies flying with the pop rivet system, but was wondering if you could screw the canopy down, directly into the tubing? I have seen a few posts of inserts being installed in the tubing, but I have already match drilled the plexi, and am thinking that an insert protruding above the tube would cause some mis alignment. any thoughts on this?
JMCasey

 

[pvalovich]

Canopy - Plan B

How about just ignoring all those holes and eliminating the cracked canopy worries by gluing the canopy on?

-8A - gluing the windscreen on this weekend. Not a single rivit in my canopy/skirt frame - and very pleased with the results.

 

[Rick_A]

I had the same concerns regarding the rivets when I did my canopy. I went down the path of using screws instead of rivets. In short, I wasted a lot of time with the screws and ended up using the pop rivets that are in the plans, everywhere but the rear bow.

When you use screws, the tolerances are much tighter. One day the screws would seems to be perfect and then when I'd remove and replace the plexi the next day, I would not be able to get them to go in correctly.

The pop rivets were really no problem. Use the rivets to hold the plexi "down". Don't put any side loading on the holes and if you need to enlarge the hole in the plexi to remove stress, do it.