Drilled canopy to frame
I psyched myself up for the big drilling event. The temps here in Seattle have been cooling off. It was around 70 degrees in the garage. I pulled out the heater and put it in the baggage area pointed toward the cockpit. With it set on low, it heated up the area under the canopy to a nice 80-85 degrees. I let that run for about an hour to make sure everything was heated up. During that time I made double and triple sure the canopy was exactly where I wanted it, taping down the front and sides and clamping the aft edge. With Julie pushing in on the side, I drilled every other hole from the top down the aft edge and then forward along the side. We repeated that on the other side. I then went back and drilled the other holes. I used a fairly slowly turning drill, and let the drill bit cool off frequently. Of course I used a 1/8″ drill bit that is made just for plastics. It’s a little difficult to line up the drill bit with the #40 hole underneath. You just have to look at it from a couple of different angles. I let the 1/8″ drill bit enlarge the hole in the underlying aluminum frame after going through the plastic.
The whole thing turned out great, and was not nearly as stressful as I thought it would be. I have just a tiny bit of trimming/sanding to do along the sides and aft edge. The middle of the front edge lifted up slightly–maybe 1/16″. I’ll do a tiny bit of sanding along the front as well.
That was all the time I had for the project, so I removed all of the clecos to relieve any pressure on the canopy.