The Canopy is mounted and everything is coming along. It took a bit of time to get to this point as I was also trying to get the aft window sealed and installed. I took my time on the canopy because I didn't want to scratch or damage it. Also, it was cold and they are more brittle so I kept the shop warm. For those that use these blogs for tips two people would be better when it comes to handling the canopy. I don't have help waiting to spring into action so I just laid out some foam and carefully slipped it into place. I'm also putting in the seal kit so there's about 6 extra pages of stuff to be done during this chapter.
The aft window took three attempts to get it where I was satisfied. The first attempt was made using the one ounce bottles of pro seal and some West Marine syringes. I put it in and screwed it down and when I looked inside it looked terrible. There's about a 3/4 inch overlap between the window and the turtle deck. The turtle deck is white and the pro seal is black. You can see in the pic below that the pro seal didn't mush out because I didn't get enough in there. It set up fast and I pulled it out, cleaned it up and put it back in for a second attempt. On the second try I still couldn't get enough material to cover the over lap and the pro seal was setting up fast. I wen't about a 1/3 of the way around and called it. Up to this point I've only used the one ounce bottles of pro seal but I had the mid size pro seal that Vans sells that goes in the caulk gun. Vans had told me that the larger sizes of pro seal have a longer pot life and you could pretty much work with this stuff all day without any problem. I threw about 1/3 of it away but I'm happy with the seal now.
Next up is to cut the glass and start the layup. Progress.
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| Test fitting the canopy. |
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| Everything aligned. |
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| Carefully trying to get the holes lined up against the tube so when it's riveted it won't be under stress. |
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| Everything drilled - getting closer to making this permanent. |
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| Looks like it's all lined up. |
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| Everything worked out. No Cracks and it's riveted on. |
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| I decided to pro-seal the canopy to the side skirts. It just looked like a place that would leak in the rain. |
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| This is the first attempt at getting the aft window sealed. it just looked terrible and you would always see it. The second attempt wasn't any better. |
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| Inside looking out. Feels good to sit in it with the canopy closed and latched. |
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| Finally happy with the aft window seal. It came out nice. |
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| Getting this to a place where I was happy with it took three weekends. |
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| Next step it to break out the fiber glass. |
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| Aft window seal after removing the tape. |
