This weekend I took a deep look at the canopy frame assembly. This is the foundation for the entire canopy and is a large part with lots of interrelated components. It seems that work you do now will impact pieces and their fit down the road quite a bit. So basically you need to get everything in process and continue looking forward and back throughout the construction of the whole canopy. To start I put up the canopy bow against the roll bar using the 4 blocks for spacing that Vans recommends. Then I used 1/8th inch spacers on the side frame pieces to ensure appropriate position. Once situated, I started drilling the parts. Its funny, on the canopy when fitting the parts, I think you work from the front to the back, then from the back to the front and meet up somewhere in the middle with a good fit. Then you drill holes one size twoo small and don't rivet them until much later to make sure you have really the right fit. I started drilling to 3/32 then enlarged some of them to 1/8th. Hopefully I didn't enlarge them too soon. I lined everything up as precise as I could, so we will see what happens when the canopy is finally fit..
Then since I didn't really have a good plan for what to do next I skipped forward a few pages and started on the canopy strut mounts. These guys were fun to make, drilling holes and tapping out for the posts that hold the struts.. This will just get me further ahead when I get to that point. Oh, and I also drilled them to the canopy frame. I hope I didn't do this too early, but I figure now I have a match hole to use to drill the skin and enlarge to the #10 screw when the time is right. We'll see.
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