First thing today was to trim the forward edge and both side edges of the top skin.

I made up some little shims. The two little ones at the top of this photo are to fit between the top skin and the firewall tabs, just above where the top skin overlaps the side skin. The other shims are additional shims for the right side sub panel flange. Apparently I didn't get the curvature quite right on the right side.

Presently, the aft edge of the top skin overlaps the forward edge of the canopy skin. In order to transfer the edge of the canopy skin up to the top skin (plus, perhaps .015 for paint clearance), I need a reference edge. I decided to use a strip of tape. I took a measurement of the width, thinking I'd need to know this for a subsequent step.

...applied a strip of tape so that the edge was even with the forward edge of the canopy skin...

...then clecoed the upper forward skin back on. You can see how it covers some of the tape along the forward edge of the canopy skin.

Instead of measuring and marking, I just decided to lay a second layer of tape over the upper, forward fuselage skin. Since the aft edge of this tape is coincident with the aft edge edge of the prior layer of tape, that means the foward edge of this tape is coincident with the forward edge of the prior layer, and thus the forward edge of the canopy skin.

I used an exacto knife to split the tape along the rough edge of the upper forward fuselage skin.

To allow roughly .015 gap for paint clearance, I applied yet another strip of tape. You can see a .015 band of aluminum exposed between the tape edges.

After cutting and filing this edge, I clecoed it back in position. It looks great!

Here's a close-up showing the match between the upper forward fuselage skin on the left and the canopy skin on the right in the curved area. Much better than the 1/8" mismatch I had with Van's parts. There are some tweaks yet to do, but that's all for today.