Well, today I fit up the structure for the forward fuselage to try to figure out what to do with my canopy attachment. You see, I've noticed that all the tip-ups have a gap between the canopy skin and the forward top skin. This is due to the fact that these skins abut each other, so since the pivot point is below the surface of the skin, the skins would bind upon opening the canopy. In order to eliminate the binding, one of the skins or the other needs to be filed back...creating a gap between the edges of the skins.

Well, being a bit of a perfectionist and also considering that my instruments will be under this gap makes me want to do something slightly different for this installation. I think I'm going to fashion a modification to allow the canopy to "pop up" about 1/4 inch when the canopy release handle is in the "released" position. This should eliminate the binding, but will add some weight and complexity. I'm not worried about the weight since I've got a composite prop, and I think the complexity will be a fair trade-off if the result comes out as nicely as I hope it will.

After deciding what to do, I spent the rest of the day doing some CAD design on the computer.