Week 164 - Canopy - DV panel

Hours to date 1473.25

Just a short post this week about fitting the DV panel to the canopy.

Before I get onto that I thought I would let you know how the canopy bonding turned out.

I left it to set for 48 hours and applied a little gentle heat during this time to help that  - using my fan heater through the baggage end gap.

All seems well - the perspex is very securely bonded to the frame with almost no air bubbles (a couple of very small ones but nothing to worry about).

As a side note I did mix up my flock a little runny compared to the normal 'Peanut butter' consistency - I think this was the right thing to do to get the perspex to bond without air bubbles.

As you will see below there are a couple of areas where the flock oozed up into the perspex (under the tape at the front - and over the tape where I had put the wooden block on the outside). I should have got back inside to scrape these off but I was in a rush going out (hot date!). 

Best never to rush such a job...

Anyway they are all fixed up now with many careful hours with a Stanley knife and Dremel (masking the canopy to protect it with 4 layers of duct tape first).

Pete puts a foam strip around the top edge of the frame to stop the flock oozing out but I felt uncomfortable doing this as my canopy had precious little surface area to bond in a few places and the foam would reduce that still further.

All that is left to do is to fit the frame and canopy to the fuse properly now - there is a bead of flock that needs to be sanded down and I will then use micro to make the whole thing perfectly smooth after that.

Onto the DV panel.

There is nothing in the instructions about it but just look at a few photos and you'll figure it out.

The only tricky bit is fitting the actual panel, as it is spring loaded.

The best thing to do is fit one of the canopy rails (the lower one) then put the DV panel into the lower rail, and while holding it in, fit the top rail (do this in the fully closed position as this is the least amount of stress on the springs). Three hands would be useful here! It can be done by two believe me...

Bit of flock that oozed under the tape - now gone.

DV panel fitted

Trying it on for size!

Ditto