Canopy Skirts Prep

April 8th 2023, 7h

The main question for today is how to fix the canopy to the canopy frame, in order to do the fiberglass layup. I read many posts, most skip on how they made this happen. The one post that ended up having full fiberglass, went all out skipping all riveting and glueing the canopy to the frame.

The process I am going for is as follow:

• Side skirt: keep part of the aluminum side skirts, since it helps with attaching to the inside skirts, and it provides a surface for the fiberglass, cut the lower and back parts that were problematic, then lay fiberglass on top of it. So, from the outside, it will look like full fiberglass
• Back skirt: 100% fiberglass.

To attach the canopy to the canopy frame, the thought process is as follow:

• Side skirt: use half of the holes to attach the aluminum skirt to the canopy and inside skirts, and the other half will end up attaching the fiberglass to the aluminum skirt, to the canopy to inside the skirt.
• Back skirt: use half the holes to rivet the canopy to the canopy frame, then the second half to rivet the fiberglass to the canopy to the canopy frame. My main worry here is that I read that we should not pop rivet directly to the canopy. So, I am still researching this part.

To this end, the main work for today is to start prepping the riveting of parts on the side of the canopy:

• Enlarge the top holes in C-660 for screw #6
• Enlarge the top holes in C-759 for screw #6
• Countersinking half of the holes in C-660 that we will use to attach the side skin to the canopy to the inside skirts.
• Enlarging the side holes in the canopy to 5/32, and deburring (Note, the last back hole still need to be deburred)
• Enlarging the second row of holes in C-660 and C-759 Wd-640 to 33 for MK-319
• Enlarging the holes in WD-640 and top C-791 to 1/8inch

Next Week

• Canopy
  • Enlarge the holes in the back to the canopy and canopy frame (not sure what size)
  • Countersink the side and back of the canopy, every other hole one the sides, chose 2 holes on the back each side.
• C-660 aluminum outermost part
  • Countersink 1 yes, 2 no for the second and third row
• C-759
  • Countersink if needed depending on depth of rivet
• C-791
  • Countersink if needed depending on depth of rivet
• Deburr steel and aluminum parts
• Prime – All sides of parts
• Paint – inside of all parts on canopy
• Paint the white canopy frame with touch ups

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