Canopy Frame Finishing (4)

4 hours

This probably should have taken like an hour but I goofed up and things got out of control.  I started by painting the canopy frame and latch flat black.

Then I went through and tapped all the 6-32 holes.  Of course on hole number 45 out of 48, I snapped the tap off in the hole.

I couldn't get it out, so the next day I brought the frame to a local machine shop to see if they could get it out.  They took it for a day, and when I picked it up they said they had to drill out the aluminum around the tap to get it out, so they did that, filled the area back in with weld, ground it down to shape, drilled and tapped a new hole, and repainted it.  Seemed like a lot of work, and all they accepted in return was a 12-pack!

Anyway, I got it home, and unfortunately the new hole they drilled didn't quite match up with the hole in the canopy.  I guess I should have specified it had to be in the exact same spot, but I didn't expect them to drill a new hole anyway.

At this point I wasn't sure what to do.  I looked into trying to fill the plexiglass so I could drill a new hole in the canopy, but I wasn't confident it would turn out looking nice.  I wasn't sure if I should drill a new hole in the frame, since I didn't know how hard the weld material was, or if there were chunks of tap still in there I'd run into, or what.

Eventually I decided to go ahead and try drilling a new hole in the frame,  I marked the location with a drill bit while the canopy was on, then removed it from the plane to drill through.

I was able to drill through that location without too much trouble, although the bit tried to wander towards the other hole.  I decided I didn't trust trying to tap it again because it was so close to the other hole, so I enlarged the hole and plan to use a longer screw with a nut on the back side.  I'll get a picture of it in the next entry, but they way the B-model frame is, I don't think the nut will ever really be visible unless you were looking from the rear, on the right side of the plane, with the canopy open.  I think it'll be fine!