Finishing Kit

Today was the official beginning of the work on my Finish Kit. I've been very excited to dive into this. I've been told I can expect to invest 150 hours or so into the work on the canopy. I might as well get started.

The first thing you do is prepare the hinge pin blocks that will hold the front end of the canopy frame to the airplane. The drawing shows you where to mark and drill the first hole. Here you can see my drilling method. There are two thick blocks and two thin ones. I clamped them all together and drilled them all at once with a #10 bit.

Next, you drill a 1/4" hole. This is the hole that will actually hold the canopy frame hinge pin, and act as a hinge for the canopy to open and close.

Next, you make a couple of spacers. They need to be cut from this 1/4" thick aluminum bar. Time to drag out the band saw.

Moments later, I had them cut.

The drawing shows you where to mark and drill the first hole. The second one is match-drilled in place after you clamp the parts in place in the airplane.

I spent some time cleaning these up and deburring them, and then clamping them in place along with the plastic blocks. I want to make sure I have them positioned exactly right before drilling.

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