More Canopy Progress

Things have been busy over the last few days working on the BatBerry .  I’ve been jumping between projects trying to make the best use of the great weather we’ve been having!

One of those projects has been working on the canopy.  I had previously chopped it up and made it fit better with the body shell, but that was just the start of the work needed.

Next I needed to fill in the gaps created by that process with some short strand filler so that I could then re-shape the contours of the canopy.

Then I started re-shaping the curves with the grinder.  The grinder is a quick way to rough out the shape that you’re looking for instead of trying to sand your fingertips off with some 40 grit paper 🙂

Next was adding in some layers of body filler so that I could start and smooth out the shape into a more even look (as seen in the photo at the top of this post).

I’m still working through this process on the canopy, and there’s a lot more sanding and shaping that needs to be done.  Although I needed to take a break from being covered in filler dust for the entire day so I started doing a bit of work on the canopy arms.

With the new steel frame adding weight to the canopy I knew that my existing rear canopy arms needed to be beefed up.  Right now they have a bit of flex in them because they are just bent steel.

To strengthen them I cut and bent some steel rod to weld on each side of the arm.  This made them really strong!

I then finished them off by trimming the bottom and welding on a little cap over the area where the shaft of the wheel was welded to the arm.  This just gives a nice finished look compared to seeing that shaft sticking through.

I’ll also run some body filler along the welds on the inside of the arm so that I can sand them down nice and smooth.  I want this arm to look pretty good since it will be a visible trim piece inside the cockpit.

There’s still lots of work to do on the canopy, but it’s coming along nicely!