Before working on the rear part of the frame, I install the braces on the forward fram. This is only a test fit, no drilling done yet as I have to make sure there is no frame is not twisted. It will be done later.



The first task is to reduce the angle between the flange and the web of th frame to 88°.



This operation, warps the frame parts quite a bit (they were perfectly flat before).



To have them lie flat again, some aggressive fluting has to be done. The position of the flutes has been determined so as not to interfere with the position of the screws that will hold the canopy.

The work on the forward canopy frame goes on. First the hinges get drilled, progressively from 1/4" to 3/8". The the brass bushings are inserted. At first sight, all looks good.



Then I make for the second time the parts for the canopy jettison. I still have the right rod to do again.



After that I put the frame and the skins back on the fuselage. I noticed some problems that will need to be tweaked. The gap between the two skins widened on the left side, but narrowed on the right side which also seems to sit a bit higher. There are also some interferences during the opening of the frame.
The frame is known to be moving a lot during the building as parts are added, so I will wait till I addes the side rails and the rear roll bar.

The weather being sunny, I decided to prime all the parts I had available. But as usually first tings first: deburring, sanding and degreasing. No picture of the green parts, but one if some trial painting for the inside of the cabin.
I tried two different hammered effect paints. One is from Hammerite, but proved quite difficult to spray despite thinning according to the manufacturers instructions. And the effect is not that nice.
The other paint comes from the local hardware store, the effect is nicer, but it's quite difficult to spray the paint vertically, it runs rapidly. And the effect is very dependent on the way the spraying is done, mainly the distance from the can to the object seems an important variable. I'll let everything dry and see again later.



While wainting for the parts to dry, I decided to work on the frame reinforcing parts. No so long ago, these where optionnal parts, now they are included in the kit. The first thing is to bend the circumference of the big holes. This is done with a small slitted piece of hardwood.



Here the three parts with the bends done and the six small tabs that have to be cut and drilled.

With the frame in position, the tabs on the hinge arms are backdrilled; Then all comes off the fuselage for deburring.



All is again clecoed together to final drill the splice plate joining the right and the left side of the frame.

Today, I begun installing the forward canopy frame. First the skin gets clecoed to the frame. Here the whole is installed on the fuselage, now on to the adjusting.



I have the same problems as other builders. First the aluminium block on the hinge block is to big a,d needs to be trimmed.



Then, the lower part of the hinge arm rubs against the subpanel. So, I trimmed the subpanel, which was not really necessary as arm was not tight with the upper part of the frame (barely visible on the upper right).



Then the seal support was too wide, I had to trim 1/10 inch.



I made a rough check of were the hinge arms will be drilled, here is the right arm.



Here is the left arm. The final holes will be slightly lower, as I made the marks before readjusting the arms position.



This is a view from above. The upper skin is the forward fuselage skin, the canopy skin is below. The gap is maintained with small aluminium spacers.



Here everything is put back again on the fuse. To get there needed both skins to be installed and unistalled a few times. There is still some work to be done before this part is finished.