I finally got a long day on the project for the first time in a while. I got started by making some 7/8″ and 1/8″ spacers. I used some blue tape to make the wood spacers exactly 0.875″ thick. The aluminum bar was already 0.125″ thick.
The flanges of the canopy channel need to be bend to 92.5º (they come from the factory at about 88º).
Bending the flanges of the channels severely warps them. I had to flute them to get them flat again.
Here’s a closeup of some of the flutes. Fluting this 0.063″ thick channel is tough. My hand is aching from this.
I laid out the holes for the splice plate that will join the two canopy channels. I should have read a few of the builder’s logs a little closer. The outer holes on the center row end up too close to the tooling holes in the channels. If you haven’t already drilled the splice place, you probably want to move those holes 1/4″ up.
I drilled the splice plate to one of the two channels.
There is a sharp bend in the canopy weldment. A few squeezes with the hand squeezer smoothes out the curve.
Next up, I laid out and drilled the holes in the two forward splice plates. These join the canopy frame sides to the forward weldment.
The splice plate sits immediately on the other side of this joint.
Here are the side channels clamped down to the 1/8″ spacers. You can also see the splice plate clamped to the side channel and forward weldment.
The aft end of the side channels are also clamped down on top of the 1/8″ spacer with the rear angle flush against the channel.
The side channels need to be positioned so that the 0.032″ thick canopy skirt will be flush with the side skins. Here I’m using a piece of scrap to make sure the side frames are positioned correctly.
After everything was finally positioned, the aft end of the side frame can be drilled to the canopy channels.
The forward splice plates were then drilled to the side channels and forward weldment. After drilling these, I removed all of the clecoes and disassembled all of the canopy frame components.
