Prepping Canopy Frame for Rivet

This weekend was a big weekend for working on the plane.   I got tons done, but not a lot to show for it.  Basically I am going to rivet the canopy frame before final fitting and drilling of the canopy.  The steps here are kind of vague in the plans, so builders build this inconsistently.  For me I think the key to a good canopy fit is to ensure the canopy frame is as final as possible.   So before riveting I had to build and fit the canopy reinforcement.   Basically I used the cheapo edge bender from Avery and riveted it into an angle so that I could get a good squeeze on the lightening holes to strengthen the reinforcement.  Very similar to this builders example. "here"  After these holes were bent I went ahead and shaped the reinforcement to fit under the canopy frame and drilled it away.  The prepped everything and have decided to put some bright yellow flash underneath the canopy frame..  This will never be seen except for when the canopy is open which I am hoping will add a bit to the coolness factor of the airplane..  We’ll see..  Anyway, I also “pre-painted” the frame so that the parts that will be hard to get to when the skin is on are already black.  This way once I final paint this I am hoping it will be flawless..  Here is hopin..  ;-)   Also, I added the UMHV tape at the leading edge over the paint.  This will protect the exposed skin that rides ontop of the forward deck..   Thus far things are turning out pretty good..