The general view among builders I know is that fitting the canopy is their least favourite (most hated?) task in building a model aircraft. The canopy frame is not too hard to build (see earlier post), but cutting and sanding the canopy to a perfect fit, and then glueing it on is a real pain. It takes a lot of time and patience and very few things are so visible and ruin a build like a badly fitted canopy.

I use a pair of Tamiya curved lexan cutters and a Permagrit sanding block to cut and sand the canopy to size. Important is to mark the center both at the front and rear of the canopy as well as the fuselage to make sure that you always place the canopy in the same position. I do a first a “rough” cut using the Tamiya cutters and then using the Permagrit to sand it into perfect shape (being VERY careful that you don’t slip and scratch the canopy!!). Then it’s try, sand, try, sand…..repeat. It took me a bit over two hours on the VT-16 Orlik to get to an acceptable cut.

I then wax the seat of the canopy frame in the fuselage (three times, using liquid wax, slightly rubbing it with some soft cloth in-between coats). I then prepared epoxy mixed with micro-balloons and aerosil, fairly thick, but thin enough so that I could apply it using a syringe. Using the syringe I applied the epoxy evenly to the canopy frame and gently placed the canopy onto the frame. Using pieces of waste wood with double-sided tape as well as lots of wax tape I made sure that the canopy is in the right position and nice and even with the edge of the fuselage. Now it’s time to let the epoxy cure. Fingers crossed that it will come out well tomorrow….