6/21/2008
Today I made the final trims on the forward canopy. I solicited advise from the RV forums, and the majority of those that responded said they used a belt sander to bring the final trims up to the line. I don't have a belt sander, but thru my tool sharing buddy, Carl Peters, I had one in hand in no time. I had several grits to choose from, and the first one I tried was 120 grit. It worked great, and didn't see any need to even try the others (50 & 80).
The 120 grit paper is not too quick, which is nice, but it does work easily, which is also nice. After the 120 grit sanding was done with the sander, I manually smoothed the edges with a sanding block. First with 180 grit, then 240, 320, 400, 600, and finally 2000 grit paper. The edge is super smooth, and the fit is perfect!
Here's the left side. The edge of the canopy runs right along the blue line on the side rail, and passes thru the ear nicely.
At the roll bar, it matches the centerline as planned.
The right side is just as the left, but I didn't take a pic. Time to start thinking about the attachment plan...
2.5 hours
The other thing I'm pretty proud of, is how I rearranged the garage a few weeks ago to fit BOTH vehicles, all my benches, AND the fuselage! Since the truck is gone, and I'm now driving a smaller car, I thought I'd give it a try, and it works!
How 'bout that!? I do have to move the car out to get any real work done on the airplane, but it's very nice to have the security of the garage for everything if and when the summer storms roll through. The airplane being on the castor dolly's make easy work of moving it around.