I normally leave primed parts a couple of days to harden up before assembling. So while waiting for the Fwd Canopy Assembly parts to harden, I pressed ahead and assembled the Aft Canopy Frame Assembly which I’d primed a while ago.

Making the handle went quickly with the squeezer.

When joining the two halves I was very careful to cleco the C-01442C Aft Canopy Fixture into the correct holes!

Actually, when connected there was a wedge shaped gap between the halves at the join, enough to make me wonder … so I placed the assembly on the fuselage to double check I’d got it right.

It was difficult to keep the structure rigid enough to guarantee reliable squeezing, so out came my trusty C-Frame.

Using it to back rivet yielded good results.

The “wedge shaped” join … not what I expected from Vans.

Fitting C-01405D Aft Canopy Frame Splice was the trickiest job on this page.

This is how I ended up clamping and match drilling.

Job done.