Finishing Kit

Today I spent a lot of time taking everything apart, deburring all the holes, dimpling the #40 holes (be careful with this! It would be too easy to dimple them the wrong direction! Think carefully.) and I also cleaned up and deburred the canopy frame and the skin. Then it was time to prime it all. After the primer dried, the little clasps could be riveted to the back sides of the side braces. The center brace isn't shown here, but it's primed, too.

I also deburred, dimpled, scuffed and cleaned up the canopy skin. The strip of blue tape is where a strip of UHMW tape will eventually go, so I want to leave the bare aluminum unprimed for that.

I ALMOST started riveting everything together at this point. But after thinking about it, I decided that this all needs a coat of the topcoat interior JetFlex paint first. This is because you can see the inside of the skin through the lightening holes in the canopy brace parts. So the skin needs to be painted first. Trying to shoot paint through the lightening holes, and getting that to look good, is very questionable. So I'll paint it first before riveting this stuff together. It seems like this canopy frame project is going on forever. But I want it done right, and to look good. This part of the airplane is highly visible whenever the canopy is open.

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