Today started off with 3 hours trimming, taping and cutting the canopy 3/4" all around then sanding to prep for foam and glass. Next I had to figure out how I wanted to build up the canopy frame....blocks of foam per plans, or x-30? I decided that my shortage of foam justified the x-30 so I created a template on posterboard for making a dam. The dam took a while to figure out but turned out really nice. the templates measured 2"x2.5" and as long as I could get them. I still haven't decided on how to build the turtle deck so that will be saved for later. I extended the dam work all the way to the nose gear mounts so that I could fair in the contours smoothly. I'm really excited about this canopy as it feels so much more spacious and offers much better visibility. After about 1.5 qts of x-30 i'd built up enough for carving. Now here's a cool thing I noticed... In using the carboard dams, I created a very thin layer betweenthe fuselage and canopy that in the plans is removed when cutting out the frame. In using the posterboard I will now be able to remove it and lay up the glass and count on it being just enough material to fill the gap. :)
