In preparation for installing the canopy bubble to the canopy frame permanently, I needed to pain the glareshield a flat black so that there won’t be any glare on the inside of the canopy. I scuffed the surface with scotchbrite and cleaned it thoroughly since this will be nearly impossible to repaint later. I then primed it and painted it.
Here’s the finished surface. Other than a couple of minor boogers, it looks good.
I spent the rest of the night trying to tweak the canopy frame to follow the curve of the fuselage. The left side was overhanging the side by about 1/16″. I used my stretcher to stretch the canopy channel and unfortunately,
way overshot it. I tried using the shrinker to pull it back, but ended up breaking the shrinking dies in the process. I finally had to use my vise and a contraption of parts to bend the frame back into alignment. It was a major pain in the ass, but it looks pretty good now.
Finally, I pulled the canopy bow off the plane and drilled the splice plate.
