CANOPY August, 2004

Aug 3 - Finally trying to get myself back up to speed on the plane after being away at OSH for a week.  Fine tuned fit of WD617 to oval holes in F705.  Fit the VS411 brackets.  Prep C605 beam idler and install it.  Bend and install C606 links.  The plans don't seem to spell out what bolts to use for all this, so I just figured out what sizes I need here.  Adjusted length of C710 rod so that WD617 goes fully into the oval holes in F705.  4.0 hr

  And here it is with all the parts installed.

  Here's the detail view of the rear canopy latch parts.  You have to bend & twist those little C606 links to fit.  Like the manual says, it becomes pretty obvious what's needed once you start doing it.

Aug 4 - Continue adjusting length of C710 rod.  Trim 0.1900" off one end in my lathe.  Dimple fuselage LT side skin and countersink upper & lower C712s.  Clean parts & prime.  Pack up to go to the track.  2.5 hr

Aug 5-8 - racing at NHIS; process pics & update web site during down time  12.5 hr doc

Aug 10 - cleco and rivet C712 angles to skin.  0.5 hr

Aug 11 - finish riveting C712 angles to skin.  Start in in "Fit Canopy Frame to Fuseleage" portion of manual.  Put UHMW tape on bottom fwd edge of C702.  Find & mark centerline of WD716 aft rod.  As per manual, spent a HUGE amount of time filing the fwd rib top flange of the WD716 so it's 90 degrees.  I don't know why it needs to be filed, and not just bent, but I was a good boy & did what I was told.  I filed on that thing for hours.  Then I clecoed the C702 skin onto the frame.  It did not fit well at all, as described on both Dan Checkoway's and Walter Tondu's (and no doubt numerous others') web sites, as well as what I encountered.  3.5 hr

  Here's the C702 canopy skin, with 3/8" of HDPE tape on the bottom fwd edge, as per the manual.

Aug 12 - beveled aft edge of canopy frame hinge blocks, as well as fwd edge of canopy hinges, for a much easier slide-in fit when putting the canopy frame hinges into the hinge blocks.   Grrrrr - found that, somehow, when the F771 fwd skin is clecoed on, it slightly squeezes the LT hinge blocks together a bit, and the LT hinge WILL NOT go it, even with the aforementioned bevels.  If I put the hinge in first, it goes in OK, but then the outer F771 rivet holes don't line up.  As I said, grrrrr.  Removed skin, canopy frame, and LT hinge blocks.  Decided that I can fix the problem by taking material off the back side (outboard) edge of the outboard spacer (C618), so I spent hours sanding the back of that.   I also noted that Dan Checkoway is now selling his web site on a CD, so I ordered that.  It's a tad expensive, but actually a real bargain compared to the Orndorff tapes, for several reasons.   First, the media; it's random access, not sequential access.  You don't have to go through a tape to see something; you go right to where you want.  You can search for things.  Second, it's current and very detailed.  Ornforff's tapes are obsolete RV-6 stuff, and I found them to be only marginally useful on a new RV-7 Quick Build.   2.75 hr

  Things will be much better for you if you file a bevel on the fwd edge of the hinge arms.  Remember; the canopy frame, and these arms, will be going in and out of those hinge blocks at least a hundred times while you're fitting this frame to the fuselage.

  Do it on the aft edges of the hinge blocks, too.

  Coarse sandpaper and about 2 hours of sanding removed no more than 1/64" off the back side of this spacer.  This stuff is TOUGH!  The canopy hinge and F771 fwd skin fit better afterward, though.

Aug 13 - opened up bag of parts for canopy frame reinforcement kit - all the rivets (of different sizes) are all just dumped in there.  So, I had fun sorting that mess out for about half an hour.  Oriented the pieces and started making the reinforcing flanges in the lightening holes in the F7128Bs and C7128A.  Cleco and drill C702 skin to the aft tubing on the WD716 canopy frame, at least for the holes that lined up.  Remove and flip C619s over for more clearance for hinge.  Redrilled hinge block holes for easier bolt fit.  Ended up with a huge long list of poor fit problems to email to Van's about.   6.0 hr

  Using the Cleaveland edge bending tool to start flaring the lightening holes in the canopy frame reinforcing kit.;

  Once I got the flares started with the Cleaveleand tool, I made this tool out of aluminum bar stock to finish flaring them.  I tried it with wood, but the wood split open, so I made this.  It worked great.

  When I was flaring the lightening holes on the C7128A, I got a bit carried away and flared it considerably more than the plans called for.  It was going so well, and I figured I'd get even better stiffness by flaring to more than the 20 or 30 degrees the plans specced.  I ended up flaring them to nearly 90 degrees.  Unfortunately, there's a reason to not try to bend 2020T3 too much; it cracks.  One hole had these 2 cracks.  I stop-drilled them, and debated strongly for quite awhile about whether or not to replace the C7128A.  Even though I was ordering some other parts, I decided this would really be fine.  I may yet replace it, though.  It's not a big deal - the whole thing is optional anyway.

Aug 14 - spent a couple hours processing pictures & composing the following email to Van's about all the fit problems with the canopy frame:  2.0 hr

EMAIL TO VAN'S ABOUT NUMEROUS POOR FIT PROBLEMS, AND THE REPLIES:

Van's reply is in italics

I have run into several problems with the fit of the 2 fwd top fuse skins and the tipup canopy frame.  I understand other builders have experienced similar problems, but I don’t know whether or not they have brought the problems to your attention.  I hope you’ll address these problems for future builders, and help me get around them.

The hole matching between the F771 fwd skin and the F768B LT & RT outboard subpanels is poor.  The holes in the top of the skin matched up to the F768A center subpanel as per Van’s usual standards.  But when I did the match drilling for the F771 top skin and the F768B outboard subpanels, the holes did not line up.  The F771 skin is off in these pics, and the misaligned holes have been circled in red.  I know it isn’t anything I did wrong, because the upper hole in each section of the flange aligned properly.  The next hole on the same flange section did not line up well at all, and then the next hole, in the next section, lined up correctly again.  As you can see in the pics, it gets worse as I progress down toward the bottom of the skin.  I have the problem on both sides.  What do you recommend I do about this problem?

  The C702 skin does not fit the WD716 frame at all, on the outermost part of the aft section.  The problem is with the way the frame is made.  The rod is welded to the inside of the frame base, when it should be welded so the outside edge of the tubing is flush with the outside of the frame base.  The tubing that forms the aft part of the frame turns inside the outer part of the frame at the outside edges, disrupting the smooth curve, and departing from the natural line the skin should take to get to the edge.  It’s hard to describe.  After I match drilled all the holes between the C702 skin and the tubing, I measured & marked the gap depth of each hole that I did not drill because of the gap.  As you can see, the skin fits the frame rod nicely across the top and starting down the side, with a cleco in each hole.  Then, as it gets about halfway down the side, the rod is curved to the INside of the frame base, while the bottom of the skin is going to the OUTside of the frame base.  This leaves a huge gap.  I can’t drill this or try to pull it in – it’ll make a horrible mess.  It’s the same situation on both sides.  The bottom of the skin fits the frame, and it is clecoed, but I’m left with this big gap above the bottom cleco.  What do you recommend I do about this problem?

  The C702 skin also does not fit the frame at the 2 fwd bottom corners.  The fwd and bottom parts of the skin match drilled and clecoed OK until I got to the bottom 2 fwd holes.  As you can see in this pic, one hole is off in one direction and the other is off in the other direction.  This is similar to Problem #1.  Because of what happened in #1 above, I have not attempted to drill these 2 holes on each side.  What do you suggest I do to deal with this?

  The 2 top skins, the F771 fwd panel and the C702 canopy panel, are supposed to butt up against each other.  With the canopy frame shoved as far fwd as it will go, there is about a 1/8” gap between the skins.    Fwd is down in this pic.  The F771 panel has been removed, and the blue line you see marks the aft edge of the F771.  I also have an air gap between the hinge and the C619 block, so that isn’t what’s keeping it from coming more forward.  What is keeping it from coming more fwd is that the fwd edge of the canopy frame is hitting the aft portion of the F768D seal flanges, on LT & RT.  What do I need to do about this; cut the 1/8” or so off the seal flanges?

A suggestion – it would be very nice if the canopy frame reinforcing kit came with each rivet size in its own little bag, rather than all just dumped in together into the paper bag, resulting in lots of time wasted sorting out all those little rivets.

And a question – at what point in the building of the canopy frame is it recommended that I add the canopy frame reinforcing kit?

One more question; Page 9-2 of the manual says (para 2) that the bolt hole edge distance on the C619 is critical and is used as a stop for the canopy frame.  I don’t understand this.  What difference does it make?  What defines how far forward the canopy hinge comes is the F771-to-C702 skin fit (see #4 above).  I know other builders have had to trim the aft edge of the C619 to get the hinge forward far enough.  I don’t understand the point in whether the hinge touches the C619 or not.  Does it really matter at all?

Aug 16 - still waiting for a reply from Van's to my canopy fit questions (questions above were sent Sat 8/14, but not answered until 8/17 evening).  Decided to lay out and drill the C614 canopy frame tie plate.  1.5 hr

Aug 17-22 = at NHIS, racing and updating web site during down time

Aug 21 - noted from reading entries on Dan Checkoway's site that he found it's important to make sure the canopy frame skin is at least as high as the fwd fuselage skin when drilling those hinge bolt holes.  I will have to be very careful when I do that.  Also picked up a couple more tips from Walter Tondu's site about putting the headphone jacks in the bottom of the F632 cabin frame support channel, and about changing the 470 rivets to 426 on the flap motor brace, so the WD617 doesn't rub on them so much.  Walter also has some great pics of the avionics access panels that he, Dan, Gary Newsted, Fred Stucklen, and others have put in.  I'll be doing that, too.  Also sent email to Bill Esther about the engraved fuel caps that Dan & Walter used.  3.0 hr

Aug 24 - Finally was able to get off the emails, avionics, and computer stuff, and get back to the PLANE.  Marked where canopy frame shields the subpanel.  Removed C702 skin so I can see why the canopy frame won't go any more forward.  Filed the canopy seal flange lip some to help the weldment go forward.  Filed down the aft edge of the RT C619 block, because the hinge arm was hitting it.  Marked the LT F745 where I will eventually cut it off to make a custom rib between the subpanel and the instrument panel on the LT side.  Filed fwd edge of triangular part of WD716 weldment, where it meets (and sticks out slightly from) the fwd channel on the weldment.    That was tedious, but I eventually got it to a nice and smooth transition between the 2 pieces.  Drill and cleco most all holes in canopy frame and C702 skin, except the holes over the plates that go from fwd to aft on the weldment, to tie in the tubing at the aft of the weldment.  Skins now fit better, but it still isn't quite right.  The bottom edges butt, but there's still a 1/8" gap in the center.   Also, the skins are flush on top and on the bottom (sides), but midway through the curve, at about 45 degrees, the C702 skin is higher than the F771 skin.  I don't know what I can do about that.  Finally, I put together orders to Avery and ACS.  8.25 hr

  One of the things Bruce Reynolds told me to do was file down the fwd bottom triangular parts of the canopy frame weldment, so it's flush with the fwd channel.  You can see it isn't flush now, especially at the bottom corner (LT in the pic), where the red arrow is pointing out a bump.

  A bunch of filing later, it's all nice and smooth now on both sides.  This should help the skin sit down better on the frame.

JAN, '05 update - as I found when riveting the C702 skin onto the frame, you'll want to trim the edges of a couple of the flanges, to make it easier to get a bucking bar in to some of the rivets, like the ones in the LT center and lower RT of this pic.    See HERE for details.

  I also deburred all the holes, made sure all chips were removed, and removed the lower skin wrap, all for a better, tighter, closer fit of the skin to the frame.

  Now, it fits better, although it's still just a bit too much gap in the middle.

  The bottom of the hinge arm is hitting the top of the slots in the center subpanel.  Filed the slot a bit deeper.

  File the top of the subpanel flanges, at the openings, where they bulge up slightly

Aug 25 - Started the day by calling Van's again about the fit problems here.  Tom said I DO need about a 1/16" gap between the skins at the top (the manual says to butt them together).  He said the F771 fwd skin and the subpanel flange gaps will get sealed with ProSeal or RTV.  Tom says my fit actually sounds pretty good, and just needs some tinkering.  He also said the aft part of the canopy frame weldment should not be sitting down on the fuselage deck.  It should be up some, so the bottom edge of the C702 skin is flush with the canopy deck.  Called in orders to Avery , ACS.  Marked bottom of F771 panel to show where the ribs are, for later access panel planning.  I called Van's again and asked Bruce about the round hole I had made in my F757.  He said it is OK, or I could put a doubler under it, if I wanted to.  I received my TIG welder foot control, so I hooked that up & played with it awhile.  I decided to drill & cleco the holes for the fore/aft link bars on the WD716 canopy frame, to try to get everything pulled down as tight as I could.  The skin still isn't fitting well.  I have a 1/8" gap at the top and 1/16" gap at the bottoms.  On both sides, bottom of the skin is 1/16" above the fuselage side skin, except while I am pushing down hard.   The middle of the curve is still higher than the F771. I made up a list of questions to ask Van's on another call, and I also sent the RV7 list those same questions.  This work on the canopy frame is TEDIOUS.  I took many email/computer/avionics breaks throughout the afternoon and evening, then finally switched over to working on avionics until I talk to Van's again in the morning.  9.0 hr

  When I made the hole in the F757-T, it was at the same time I was doing the finger access holes for the cabin frame F631As.  Van's had told me the exact size/shape/location of the holes was not critical, as it was just to get my fingers in there.  So, I assumed the square hole in the F757 was for the same reason, so I didn't bother with a square hole; I just drilled out a 1" round hole.   It turns out this hole is for the canopy lock finger to pass through.  I just wanted to confirm with Van's that the shape of the hole wouldn't cause any problems.  Bruce said it did not.  I was tempted to swap then out for new ones, but I guess it really doesn't matter.

Aug 26 - Started the day by calling Van's yet again.  Gus said I'll need to use a canopy cover over the hinge slots.  I had worried about what was going to keep the water out of there.  I still am.  I'll probably end up making some sort of waterproof cover to go between the open canopy hinge slot and the expensive avionics.  I can seal the subpanel flange gaps with ProSeal, but the hinge gap has to stay open, so the hinge will swing through it.  Gus also said the C702 skin should be FLUSH, not overhanging the fuselage side skin, and the aft part of the WD716 weldment should be UP some, not sitting on the fuselage deck.  I also got some tips and answers from the RV7 list, after an overnight delay.  Dan said he'd go with a skin overhang another time.  I think the only way you could do that is by custom making your own, wider C702 skin.  Also spent a bunch of time on avionics stuff.  I also received the air cleco tool I got from Jeff, another RV builder.  That should help a lot with taking these skins on and off about a million times in the fitting of this canopy, and it aggravating carpal tunnel pain in my hands.  Finally got back to the canopy frame in late afternoon.  First, I blocked up the aft part of the canopy frame.  This made a HUGE difference in the fit.  Now the skin fits about right,   EXCEPT (grrrrr) that now there is too much gap at the bottoms, where Van's suggested I file some off to improve the fit.  There is no need for any gap at all on the bottoms, as the skin here swings AFT when teh canopy is opened.  If I hadn't filed that off, it'd be perfect now.  The width of the bottom gaps is now just about exactly the same amount as what I filed off.  I can either accept it as is, and fill the gap in with ProSeal when I seal the subpanel flange gaps, or I can order a new C702.  I decided to do the former.  I drilled & clecoed the C614 splice plate to the WD716 canopy frame weldment.  The directions said to drill to #40 now and adjust with #30 later, but, just like Dan did, I already drilled them to #30, cuz that's what it said on the PLANS.  Maybe putting a note on the plans would be a great idea!  Then I noticed that, at the center of the top of the canopy frame, the C702 is slightly below the fuse top skin.  If anything, it needs to be slightly above it, so the 702 skin will clear the 771 skin when the frame is tipped up.  So, I took the clecoes out of one side of the C614 splice plate and pushed it up in the middle (this is with the frame off the fuselage; it doesn't move either way when the hinges are in) so the outside holes are off alignment by 1/2 rivet diameter.  I clamped it like that, drilled a hole, clecoed it, and put the frame hinges back in the hinge blocks.  See pic below for more details.  Drilled and clecoed the frame hinge gusset brackets.  Everything looked good to go at that point, so I clecoed everything together, put the frame on, and pulled it in as tight as I could.  Then I start-drilled the 1/4" holes through the hinge blocks and into the hinge arms.  When I removed the canopy frame to see where the drill marks were on the hinge arms, it was exactly like what Dan got; the RT one was perfectly centered.  The left one was way to the aft.  I was going to call Van's to confirm the frame aluminum is 6061 and can be welded, but then I realized, duh, of course it's 6061 - it's already TIG welded.  So, in the morning, I will use my new TIG welder and put some material on the aft side of that LT hinge arm.  I also filed the canopy fwd seal lip back some, and deburred the edge.  Also took this opportunity to drill out the rivets holding the F697 in, as I will not be using any of the canopy eject hardware.  7.0 hr

  Put a spacer under the aft part of the weldment, so it isn't sitting all the way down on the F721.  It is not supposed to be all the way down on the fuselage rail, and the C702 canopy skin is supposed to be flush with, but not overlapping, the fuselage skin.  NOTE:  this turned out to be one of the keys to my fit problem.

  Now it fits pretty darn good, after all the above steps.  It's less than a 1/16" gap at the top.  Note, however, that the bottom edge, now that I have the canopy frame sitting about 1/8" up above the fuselage deck, has too much gap.  There are 2 problems with this.  For one thing, either the gap should be equal all the way across, for appearance sake, or it should be a slight gap at the top and none at the bottom.  This is because you need a slight gap at the top, because, from the 45 degree point along the curve and up, the skin will move forward as the canopy frame is tipped up.  From the 45 degree point down , the edge will move BACK as the canopy frame is tipped up.  This is due to the geometry of the hinge, the canopy frame, and the curve.  Second, the gap you see at the bottom is exactly what I filed off the edge of this skin, when Van's told me to go ahead and file it to fit, and when the real cause was because I had the aft portion of the weldment sitting down on the fuselage deck, instead of being shimmed up about 1/8"-3/16".  This is the LT side.

  It's the same on the RT, where the bottom end gap is a bit less, and where I filed a bit les off the skin.  Again, it looks like the same amount I filed off.  It's very tempting to order a new C702 skin and start over with it, now that I have the rest of the canopy fwd frame set up right.  I decided to fill the gap with ProSeal when I seal the gaps between the subpanel flange sections.

  The one thing I can't get rid of, and Dan says he never got rid of it, is where the curve of the C702 canopy frame fwd skin bows up higher than the F771 fwd fuselage skin, even though the skins are flush at the top and along the sides/bottoms.

  This pic may be a bit confusing, because of the reflection.  The upper 2 rows of clecoes shown here is actually a reflection in the shiny C702 skin.  Once I got the canopy frame weldment and the C702 canopy skin as close as I could get them to being right, I drilled and clecoed the C614 canopy frame splice plate in place.  As Dan reported on his site, they tell you on the drawing to drill these holes to 1/8", then later in the manual, they tell you to only drill to 3/32" at first.  It didn't seem to make much difference, though, as the frame is quite stiff at this point, and there's no movement in the 2 halves of the fwd channel now, anyway.

  This shows where I tried to modify the curve of the top of the fwd channel on the canopy frame weldment.  The 1/8" holes show where I drilled this in place.  There was no vertical movement available to me to adjust any of this.  However, I was disturbed by the fact that the canopy frame fwd channel tends to sink down in the middle.  This is the opposite of what you need for problem-free opening of the canopy.  If you can get the C70s skin to sit a bit higher in the middle (between the hinges) than the F771 skin, you will be MUCH better off.  So, with the frame removed from the plane and the C702 skin removed from the frame, I tried experimenting with moving the hole alignments.  First, I pushed the center up so the left-most holes in this pic were misaligned by 1/2 hole.  I then clamped it and drilled the 3/32" hole you see at "A" in the middle.  Then I clecoed that hole and put the frame back in the plane.  It didn't seem to make much difference, so I pushed the joint up further, so the LT holes were off by an entire hole.  I drilled hole "B" and tried that.  It didn't seem to help much with making the middle bow up some, but it did draw the sides in so they no longer fit well.  So, I went back to the original 1/8" holes & left it there.

  After finally getting everything aligned properly, I was ready to mark and drill the canopy frame hinge arms.  Again, just as Dan reported on his site, the RT one came out perfectly centered, but the LT one is way aft, too near the edge.  This mark is only 0.222" from the aft edge.  Drilling a 3/8" hole centered here will leave almost no edge at all (0.034")on the aft side (LT in this pic).  I think Dan kinda fudged his inward, but I want my hinge bolt hole to go exactly where it needs to go; not a compromise.  I decided to use the new TIG welder, and add material to the aft side of this hinge arm. 

  Dan thought maybe he'd drilled his 1/4" hole (for the hinge pivot pins/bolts) wrong.  As you can see in this pic and the next one, the holes are exactly the same distance fwd/aft of the flange on the center subpanel.  This pic is the RT side.  The blue marks on the F771 skin above are where I outlined where the rib flange edges are.  I'll need to know this when I go to start laying out my custom avionics access panels in the F771 skin.

  And this one is the LT side.  Right at the edge of the flange on both sides.  I wonder if there's a problem with the weldment jigging, although Walter did not report this problem.

Aug 27 - spent the morning on numerous phone calls and emails related to avionics.  Did some TIG practice to get warmed up, then went into town to get a new liner for my aluminum MIG welder.  1.5 hr

Aug 28 -did some more TIG practice, then welded up the aft edge of the LT hinge arm.  Filed off the excess metal off the side of the hinge arm.  Drilled out the RT hinge arm.  It went horribly.  The air drill was too fast, and I got terrible bit chatter.  It made a quite misshapen hole with the bit chatter, but I only went partway through .  I drilled the rest of the hole OK with an electric drill.  I will be very surprised and lucky if the hole center hasn't moved through all that.  Put the canopy frame in, and was amazed that the RT hinge bushing seems to be in the right place.  Marked the LT drill point for the hinge bolt.  Tried to drill it all in place, but having problems with that, so I removed the fame and drilled the LT hinge arm.  Received Avery order and EcuTek CD.  3.5 hr

  This is the "welding corner", and I am getting ready to TIG weld the  canopy frame LT hinge arm.

  Here, I have welded more material to the aft side of the hinge arm.

  I drilled the RT arm to 1/4" first.  When I tried to open it to 11/32", the *&^@$ bit started chattering like crazy and chewed the top of the hole all up.  I was drilling too fast, with the air drill.   I stopped right away, before going too deep like that, switched over to an electric drill, and finished it OK.  Then I reamed the hole to 3/8".  This is the inner view of the RT hinge arm.  I figured it would be a complete miracle if the hole center didn't get moved with all that chattering going on.  But I put the bushing in and decided to try it.  It actually fit perfectly the first time.  A true miracle!

  This is the outer view of the RT hinge arm.  The hole was true on this side.  The bushing is a very light press fit (just a bit more than can be done with fingers).  I used the rivet squeezer with flat rivet sets to squeeze it in there.  It wasn't as tight as I would have liked.  When I am sure it's where I want it, I will lock it in there with LocTite Red.

  here's the LT hinge arm, with the aft edge welded up with more material to surround the bushing, then filed flat.

  Here is the LT hinge arm, with the bushing pressed in.  View looking outboard.

Aug 30 - After putting the frame back in with the bushing in both sides, the bolt will not go through the LT hinge bushing.  Looked under the F771 skin to see what is the problem.  Found the hole is not in the right place.  Marked where it should be, removed frame, and welded up the bushing hole to move the hinge bolt hole about 1/8".  Moving the bushing hole worked nicely, and the bolt goes in nicely now.   Now the canopy seal flange lip rubs against the canopy frame, so I filed the lip until I had no scraping as I raised the canopy frame.  The clecoes were getting in the way of working on the seal flange lip clearance, so I decided to rivet the frame together.  See pic notes on how I had to tweak the rivet installation on the fame center to get the sag out of it.  Finally got it so the frame would swing up without scraping on the seal flange lip.  Then added the C702 skin.  The 702 skin was not fitting correctly on the LT side.  It looks like the fore/aft connecting bar got pulled in a bit when I riveted the hinge gussets, so either the connecting bar rivet hole will align or the LT skin rivet holes will align, but not both.  Screwed with that awhile, then redrilled the LT fwd skin holes, as this tends to push the skin slightly fwd, which is good.  Finally decided to order new C702 skin.  Received ACS order; mostly aluminum sheets for doing custom access panels.  Cleaned up bench.  9.5 hr

  This is the view from the outboard side of the F745, showing how the LT hinge bolt doesn't want to go through.  I took a blue pen and stuck it in the hole at the 7-8 o'clock position, to mark the location and distance that the bushing is off.  Also note the use of temporary hardware store non-locking nuts on the 2 bolts for the hinge blocks.  I can spin them on and off quickly and easily with my fingers, while doing setups and layouts, and without wearing out the nylon in the locknuts.  When I am done fiddling with this, and ready to put it together for the final time, the nuts will be the proper locknuts.  I used this technique throughout the plane.

  Here's the same view of the outboard portion of the LT canopy hinge arm, showing where I marked it through the hole in the previous picture.  This shows the direction and amount that the hole needs to be moved.  The bushing looks elongated, but it isn't; I think it's because I rotated the image.

  This pic is taken from the opposite side of where the previous pic was taken from.  This is after I removed the bushing and used the TIG welder to add some material to the side of the hole that was opposite the blue marks in the previous picture.  I could have wrapped the weld around the hole more, but it would have made it harder to visualize where the original hole was.  I didn't want to lose track of that.  I just wanted to do this correction ONCE, not screw with it for days.  No pic of it, but the next step was to use a small carbide cutter in the side of the hole directly opposite the weld.  When I had it nearly 3/8" from center of weld to center of new ground-out area, I started with a 11/32" drill, then used a 3/8" reamer to bring it up to final size, without moving the hole center from where I wanted it.  Then I filed the surface flat again.  I knew the widest points of the existing hole, along the axis between center of the weld and the center of the ground-out area, shown here at the 1 o'clock and 8 o'clock positions, would be too wide, as they would no longer be the center of the hole, but I left them this way for tighter control of where the hole was being moved to.  More welding on the hole would have made it hard to know where the original hole was.  If the piece was by itself, I could have chucked it up the mill and moved it precisely, but this hand method worked fine.

  The red dotted line shows approximately where the original edge was.  The dark triangles at 2 o'clock and 10 o'clock around the bushing in this pic show the 2 wide points in the original hole, as described with the previous pic.  They are essentially triangular holes that go all the way through.  Now that I have the hole located, I could go back & weld up those little triangles.  I could also just ignore them, as the aluminum is just holding the bushing here, and it's at least as tight a fit as the RT side.  What I decided was the simplest action was to just lock the bushing in with LocTite Red (high strength stud & bearing lock).  If I want to go even further, I can just mix up some JB Weld and pour it into the 2 triangular holes.  The bushing sure isn't going anywhere.  Oh, and BTW, when I put the hinges back into the hinge blocks, both LT & RT hinge bolts slid through snugly.  So, that's all set.  I just need to get some LocTite Red, and I'll be all set.

  OK, now that I finally got the damn canopy frame hinges located right where I wanted them, it was time to try tipping the canopy up.  Of course, it won't tip up.  That's because you have to trim the edge of the canopy seal flange that's riveted to the subpanel.  It especially needs it in the center, where the frame moves fwd as it tips up.  #1 is the F771 fwd fuselage skin, #2 is the subpanel, #3 is the canopy seal flange, and #4 is the canopy frame fwd channel.

  For some earlier project, I ground the foot off one of my countersink cages for access into tight places.  Actually, a narrow body one (like here) would have worked, even with a foot.  Anyway, no "suicide mode" here.  Here, i am countersinking the canopy hinge gusset plate rivet holes.

  Here is the fwd channel of the WD716 canopy frame weldment, all riveted together with the C614 splice plate.  I mentioned earlier that I'd tried to force the middle here up some, then abandoned the effort.  As I started to rivet this, it clearly had a sag in the middle, and I just knew I'd pay for it big time later on if I didn't bite the bullet and force a fix now. NOTE - when you're building this, you'll see the frame has a tendency to sag in the middle.  Due to how the canopy opens, it needs to be flat or even curving up a bit in the center, so the C702 skin will clear the F771 skin in the middle as it moves fwd.  If you don't fight that sagging tendency all the way through building this, your canopy will be harder to get open, and you'll have to resort to shimming the C702 skin up to clear the F771.  I already had put in 4 rivets in the RT side (in this pic), so I drilled out the 3 I had done on the LT side, and forced the middle up.  Of course, that put the rivet holes out of alignment, but I decided that was the least of my worries at this point.  I made sure the top surfaces remained flush, and pushed the middle up so the rivet holes were out of alignment by about 1/2 hole on the fat LT in this pic.  Then I clamped it in place.  Of course, by then it was already countersunk, and I didn't want to mess with the countersinks (for good rivet flush seating).  So, I put a 1/16" end mill into the drill and used it to manually move the backing plate hole down to match where the countersink hole was.  You can't just stick a drill bit in there and try that, because the drill bit would rather eat through the thinner countersink edge than the full thickness of the backing plate.  Then I trued up the hole with a 1/8" bit and used -6 rivets instead of the -5 the plans called for.  That's because the rivet will fill up the hole, which is why I wasn't worried about the hole being elongated, but it will end up too short if you use the "correct" length, because all the length gets used up as width when the rivet material fills the hole.  If you're driving rivets, you won't get away with this (unless you're a hell of a lot better at it than I am), cuz they'll bend over, but I did it with the pneumatic squeezer, and it came out fine.  The LT 2 holes (on the LT side) were elongated by 1/16".  The middle 2 were elongated by 1/32".  The RT ones (on the LT half) were hardly elongated at all.  Then I added another rivet to the center, just to make up for any possible weakness caused by the elongated holes.  I'd have done 2 in the center, but the tooling hole was right in the way for the other one.

Aug 31 - more bench cleanup.  Fabricated wing tiedown eyebolt holder.  Make spacer blocks for F631As for aft part of canopy frame.  Make new C704.  Drill & cleco new C704.  Bend upper flange of F631As so they're a bit more than 90 degrees.  6.5 hr

  Here, I am tapping the holes for the custom holder for the wing and tail tiedown eyebolts.  I don't want them out in the airstream while I'm flying, and I don't want them bouncing around the inside of the cabin, either.  So I made this block out of 3/8" bar stock to hold them. 

  Here is the finished holder for the tiedown bolts.  I will rivet it in place somewhere; maybe behind the passenger seat.  I primed the 2 wing tiedowns, but not the tail tiedown yet.  I had to get that as a separate order, cuz Van's catalog says you need 2, and so I ordered 2.  Later, I realized I'd need a third one for the tail.  They're as close together as I can get them and still be able to screw them in and out.

  Planing some scrap 1" cherry lumber for the 7/8" spacers between the canopy frame F631As and the cabin frame.  Dan Checkoway said he found that 13/16" works better, so it was very easy to just run a second piece through the planer a couple more passes until I had a set of 7/8" and a set of 13/16" blocks.  We have a very small factory in town that makes custom cabinet doors, so they sell a grain bag full of scraps like this for a buck.  People here use it for kindling, and occasionally for small projects.  The planer is yet another Grizzly tool.  Back in about 2000-2002, I was a VERY good Grizzly customer.

  Then rip 'em for width

  Then chop 'em for length

  I used the shear to chop off the 4 pieces of 1/8"x1"x2" I need for canopy frame temp layout spacers.

  And this is what I ended up with for spacers to lay out the aft part of the canopy frame.  I made a full set of the 7/8" the plans called for, and a full set of 13/16" that Dan said he had to use.

  I didn't mention it back when I was doing the F631As for the cabin frame, but I drilled one of those bolt/nut access holes on the WRONG END of one of the F631A pieces, so I just set it aside, as I had 6 pieces at that time, and only needed 4.  Well, here I am back to it.  I will need to fabricate a longer C704 splice plate to go over the hole and further down the channel than the stock C704 does.  After I get this all put together, I will fill this hole in with a scrap piece of aluminum and some JB Weld.

  I used my A&P friend Jim's idea to make it quick and easy to bend the flange on that new custom C704 splice plate I had to build to fix the earlier screwup, back when I was building the cabin frame, on one of the F631As.

  As you can see here, the new C704, in blue,  is nearly twice as long as the stock piece.  I made it from 0.063" 2024T3 plate I had laying around after building the autopilot servo mounts.

  Here's the rivet layout I used with the new C704 plate.  The first thing I did was mark the large hole, the tooling hole, and the bolt holes (in green) on it, then I laid out my rivet pattern around the holes.  I didn't get too wrapped up in the rivet locations specified in the plans.  When the plans specify a location in /32", I assume value of the number under the line (is that the numerator or denomminator?) is the tolerance to use.  If they say 11/32", I assume that must mean exactly 11/32", not 10 and not 12.  Anyway, I see no reason why exact locations matter, so I just used the same edge distance they did, then laid out the rivets where they seemed good to go.

  The FAA likes pictures with ME in them, so here's one of me using a rubber dead blow hammer to increase the angle of the top flange on the F631A ribs that go at the back of the tipup canopy.  They come with an angle slightly less than 90 degrees, and it needs to be bent a bit more to a little more than 90 degrees.  I was using the hand seaming tool, but it doesn't work on the curved part, and this hammer worked very well.  The manual said to bend the flanges, but they didn't say which ones.  I am fairly sure they meant just the top flange needs it, where the canopy plexi will sit.

  I started out with pretty straight F631As.  After hammering the top flanges to a new angle, they were warped as hell.

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