Today I worked again on the canopy. After having taken the canopy of the fuselage, I redid the rollbar protection, marked the center of the rollbar and installed a 1" woodblock on the rollbar. When the canopy touches the woodblock it is ready to be cut in two.



This is the front of the canopy after the first cut, I had to cut a bit more to get a better fit.



Before doing that, I marked the cut line on the rear window. I was very conservative on this.



A picture of the two parts I cut off the front of the canopy, the cut line for the big cut can now be made.



After the umpteenth installation on the fuselage, the cut line is marked with two adhesive tape lines.



I used a box and some foam blocks to maintain the two parts of the canopy to avoid them falling after the cut. It worked very well.



Cutting time. I first made a shallow cut on the whole length, then I cut the two sides before finishing the center. Each time a small length was done, the two parts where taped together with some ducttape.



And the result after ten minutes of cutting.



After sanding I put the two parts back on the fuselage. It seems to look good. Next operation will be fitting the forward part to the canopy frame.

As the canopy is off the fuselage, I riveted the side lock brackets. Here the rear part.



And here the side part. I also painted the rivets, which is very easy with the hammered paint.
I then put the canopy back on the frame to draw the next cut at the front. The plans are quite vague with some instructions like : with the canopy on the fuselage, the cut linew will become obvious. Well, I'm no so sure. I looked at some websites for help.
The cut has not been made as it is too cold again.

Before reinstalling the canopy, the frame has to be installed correctly as it had moved since I last worked on it. The rollbar has to be protected to avoid scratching the cabopy and the "ears" of the forward skin are temporarly folded back.



Then the canopy is put back on the frame and centered using the line drawn at the beginning.
The forward edge will now have to be trimmed before cutting the canopy in two.

The sunny weather allowed work to begin on the canopy. Before cutting anything the lines had to be redone as the tape didn't adhere anymore.
The cut is done with an angle pneumatic grinder. It takes some time as the grinder uses lots of air and the plaxiglas is quite thick. After some length is cut, some tape is used to hold the cut off part to avoid any cracks.



To do the cut, complete attire is mandatory : mask, goggles and cap because there is a lot of very small dust particles.



Here, the four parts are cut off, next step will be to adjust the canopy to the fuselage.

First I reinstall the rear skin and then sand lightly the pop rivet heads on the roll bar as they might scratch the rear window.



Then I get the canopy out in the garden, using two old matresses as support. Our lady cat Seraphine (turning 20 in July) checks my moves.



First task is to mark the center of the canopy, this will help positionning on the fuselage.



Then the first cutting marks are made. The method is as following : a the border of a small tape marks the cutting line, then the protective sheet is taped to the first tape by a larger tape. This is to avoid canopy dust getting between the protective layer and the canopy.
The first cut is just to discard the marks left by the tooling i.e the two parallel lines visible in the picture.



As it's getting late, the first cut will be for another day.