Chapter 18

Canopy

The turtledeck was the first major part that I created, after doing the bulkheads. I built the jig according to plans. But I read in the archives, and newsletter about cutting the foam in strips front to back so you didn't need to put in the aluminum strips between joins. This is what I did, and it worked great and was vari-ez (please forgive me, I couldn't help but to type that) to do. Glassing the inside was not fun, this was my first really large surface and it had a lot of curves, it took some adjusting to my methods, but I think I figured out a way to do it. Glassing the outside was just as difficult because of the complex indentations that were sanded into the foam. After a few months and moving to a larger hanger (uh, garage), I decided to cut the window holes (only because one day Beverly saw the fuselage tub with the turtledeck sitting on the rear and said it looked like a gondola). The plans say there should be a four in gap between the front and the rear window, try this and you will find it doesn't work. In the Cozy archives you will find a way of measuring the window holes correctly.