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Building Integrity
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Date:  6-23-2013
Number of Hours:  6.00
Manual Reference:  ch 25
Brief Description:  She sees the light

Something most builders don't plan for is how their lines are affected by paint and weather seal. In my case, I will be using quite thin weather seal, but even so, will make a difference in the canopy/fuselage transition. In my testing, even a 1/16" weather strip raised the canopy lip enough to be obvious and ugly. (my opinion) SO then, like the nose hatch I will be contouring the canopy lines with the weather seal installed leaving only paint as the variable. This allowed me to get my contour of the top half of the nose 98% perfect. Prior to final contour, the separate parts will be removed, filler added along all edges and sanded. This will allow the final sanding to be all conclusive prior to adding primer. BUT don't be fooled, as this detailed work takes a LONG time. The only work done has been sanding the nose and canopy filler all weekend and it's only about 1/2 done. Crazy that the entire plane will require this.
On a not so good note, after taking the airplane outside to see the contour in different light and shadows, I noticed that my 1/16" canopy gap has opened to almost 1/2" !!!!!!! How is this possible?? My only guess at this point is that when building the canopy frame this last winter, temps weren't high enough to properly cure and now that the shop is getting up to 85 degrees, the frame has "post cured" in a warped shape leaving a huge gap. This sucks, but the good news is that if this is the case, I will simply lay the canopy out flat under a black tarp, letting it post cure again to 150 degrees for 2 hours and let it cool again in the position it needs to be in. I will look into this more later.
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weather seal added

weather seal added

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gap created by weather seal

gap created by weather seal

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sanding down the gap flush

sanding down the gap flush

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