The canopy went on and off the plane a number of times today. The primary edge that needs to be fitted first is the front windscreen edge. In its initial shape, it had a tendency to gap on both sides (about 1/3 of the way between the long edge and center). After 4 or 5 trimmings to cut the corner further and further up, it finally fit well enough to duplicate on the other side. I took a bunch of measurements using my grid paper and transferred those over. It's not worth trying to get the fit perfect at this point, since the canopy won't set down on the roll bar until it's cut in half.
I had already drawn a line down the center of the roll bar, so with the canopy sides pulled in and taped to the skins, I transferred that line to the canopy. I then ran a piece of tape down each side of the line to give me a cutting guide.
The cut to separate the two pieces was relatively painless. I taped the parts together after every foot or so of cutting, just to keep them from collapsing and cracking as the cut neared the end.
Once I had the big cut done, I put the canopy back on the frame, pulled the sides in tight to the canopy rails and marked where the long sides needed to be cut in order for them to set at the right level on the rails. Then the canopy came back off and I trimmed the long sides. For the most part, everything seemed to work out just fine, but as I was sanding down the edges I noticed that there was the tiniest of chips in one edge. Pulling back the tape revealed that the chip had created a hairline crack. It goes about 1/4" into the material (it looks a lot worse in the picture than it really is). Luckily, as long as I can get the crack stopped, it should be completely hidden by the canopy side rails and skin. It will also be encased in the Sika adhesive, which should help matters a little bit. I don't have a plexi drill bit, so I'm going to have to wait a few days to get one. Fingers crossed the crack doesn't grow any between now and then!
