The Canopy - Part 2

The SBD has a 5 piece sliding greenhouse style canopy. I didn't feel that it was worth the effort to fabricate an actual "working/sliding" canopy mechanism for the 3 moving sections (2 sections are fixed). Especially since the SBD was almost always flown with the canopy open, especially in when in combat. Therefore, I pursued a fixed/static canopy that would be glued into the open position. This section covers the finishing and installation of the remaining 4 canopy sections. The first section, the "pilot windscreen" was covered on the "Canopy Part 1" page.

Surfacing and painting the framework
I used the exact same technique on the remaining 4 canopy sections as I had already used on the pilot's windscreen section. Refer back to that page for more details on my technique and materials.

Basically to revisit briefly, all framework was covered with FliteMetal except for the areas were I knew I would be gluing surfaces together. You must glue the sections together surface to surface, not FliteMetal to FliteMetal. The FM material will not provide a usable glue joint.

Once the FM was done, I masked off all the glass panes with blue painters masking tape. This was a little faster than using the Dively Liquid Mask, since the lines were mostly very straight, square and had no compound curves. I did use a little liquid mask back on the small tail section of the canopy, which did have a little bit of compound curve to it.

With the sections all masked, it all got shot with metal etching primer, latex color coats, acrylic weathering, and Nelson's Flat Clear. The interior of the framework was painted and weathered with acrylics... no clearcoat.

Joining the 4 sections together

Rather than try to glue each section to the fuse individually, I chose to bond each section together and form a single center canopy component that I could then mount to the fuse. I figured as long as I had each of the 4 sections securely glued and pinned together into a strong, solid set... I could then focus on a strong glue joint of the set onto the fuse.

The way I went about this was to use RC56 Canopy glue to glue 1/16" aircraft ply strips between each canopy piece. This performed three functions. One was to act as a spacer to evenly distance the sections apart in more scale spacing. Next, it gave me 3 strips of wood that combine to provide 3/16" wider surface area to glue to the fuse. More importantly, it also allowed me to make a long tab on one of the three strips that I could lock down into a slot in the fuse. This tab & slot glue joint would add a lot of strength and tortional stability to the mounting of the canopy.

With all the sections and ply strips glued together, I then drilled 3 holes through the 4 sections that I ran 1/16" steel rod pins through, pinning all sections securely together. This obviously was done on both the left and right sides of the canopy, but did not protrude all the way out through the outermost surface.

Additional Detailing
There were a few more details that needed to be added to the canopy now. First there were two air deflectors, one on the trailing end of each side of the canopy. These spring loaded panels were kind of like sun visors in you car, turned 90 degrees to a vertical position. They deflected the airflow like a spoiler, to help keep the wind off the gunner when the canopy was open. I built these out of 20mil styrene and surfaced them with FliteMetal. They were then painted and glued in position on the sides of the canopy.

Next there was a rubber flange seal that protruded out from underneath the trailing edge of the rearmost canopy section. This small section slides up under the canopy and pivots up into a locked position out of the way. The seal not only helped keep moisture out, but also provided a rubber "buffer" between the closed canopy and the top of the fuse where the gun doors are. Otherwise you'd have a lot of metal rattling when the canopy was all closed up. This seal was made out of 20mil styrene, cut to shape and glued up into the canopy. It got painted with a "rubber colored" scale flat black.

Lastly, I surfaced the tops of the fuse side back onto the gunner area so I could add the rear canopy rails. Again, these styrened and FliteMetal rails were done the same way as the ones on the front pilot section were.

Before finally gluing the canopy onto the fuse, I also added a 1/16" steel rod running vertically down into each side of the fuse, right where the leading edge of the canopy would be. This rod is glued deeply into the fuse sidewalls and sticks up an inch out of these walls. The rods were bent to the angle of the canopy sides and later got epoxied to the inside sides of the front section of the canopy framework. That section of the canopy sticks out from the set and really doesn't have any surface area to glue down onto the fuse. This would surely start flapping in the wind without gluing it down somehow, which ended up being to these 1/16" rods.

With the canopy all done, I then epoxied the canopy down onto the fuse, making sure I had plenty of epoxy worked into the bottom edge of the canopy set, top of the fuse sides, and down into the slots for the tabs. That's pretty much it for the canopy. Now I get to move on back to the fun part... the gunner section. This area is what I've been looking forward to since the day I first unrolled the Bates Plans!

All Finished and ready for the Gunner Section

"Gunner's Floor"