Back to the front of the canopy frame. The big issue with this (well, one of the many big issues) is the fact that the skin has a huge gap on either side as it makes the corner from the top to the side of the frame. The gapped area is where a line of rivets go, so it can't be left as-is. I waffled between using epoxy and microballoons or epoxy putty. For no great reason other than I wanted to try it out, I went with the epoxy putty. I put packing tape on the skin to make the putty release from the skin but stick to the frame once it was cured. I rolled out a snake of putty, put it in place and then just clecoed the skin down on top of it. It squeezed into position pretty well with a little pressure. After pulling the skin off, I hit it with sandpaper to smooth out the edges a little bit. For the most part it will all be hidden, so I'm not going to fret over aesthetics. The right side went great, but for whatever reason the putty on the left side didn't set up all the way, and it also stuck to the tape. I had to scrape it all off and do it over. The second time I rubbed some wax on the packing tape, which ended up making everything release really easily.
With the gap filled, I was able to finally drill the additional holes through the frame.
Next up is putting the frame back on the plane for a brief minute to snug everything down and match drill the brackets of the hinges to the front channel of the frame. I neglected to get a picture of that. It went okay, minus one hole that got away from me. I'll have to check the result once I pull the frame back off. I may just need to put an additional rivet in the bracket to make up for the subpar one.
Everybody says as soon as you think you have the frame perfect and drill or rivet something, it all goes to crap. That's true. I had all of the gaps and edges lined up nicely, but once the drilling was done, it looked like a toddler had worked on lining everything up. I'll have to reset it all before the next step, at which point it will move again and be off somewhere else I'm sure. That's just the name of the game because of the design.
