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I have gone and gotten myself into a nice pickle! I was just wrapping up the last few items for the canopy the other day, and the last thing before reassembling it for good was to tap all the 6-32 holes around the canopy frame. Of course I got a little too fast on the 45th hole out of 48 and snapped the tap off in the hole. I tried everything I could to get it out with no luck, so I brought it to a machine shop in town. They weren't able to extract it either, so they told me they pretty much ground it off, welded the hole shut, and re-drilled and tapped the hole. Sounded great, and all it cost me was a 12-pack!

Anyway I got back working on it today, touched up the paint where they worked on it, and started installing the actual canopy on the frame. Turns out they actually did weld the hole shut and drilled a new one, but it's not in exactly the same place as the original hole was. I can't tell for 100% sure either, but from looking at the back side I can see my original hole and there might even still be a little chunk of tap stuck in it!

So now I have this one hole that doesn't line up with the hole in the canopy, and I'm trying the decide what would be the best way to deal with it. The two ideas I had were:

1. Enlarge the hole in the canopy enough to meet the new hole in the frame. However then I'd need a much larger countersunk washer to cover the big hole, and I haven't found anything like that yet.

2. Use the hole in the canopy as a guide and drill another hole in the original location. I'm a little concerned though if there's still a piece of tap in there, if I'd even be able to drill through it!

Attached is a picture that shows where the hole in the canopy and the hole in the frame are relative to each other. Anyone have any other ideas or suggestions? Thanks!!

After thinking about it some more, I think I'm going to have to suck it up and try drilling through the original hole. Even if the hole gets a little messed up I could just drill it a bit larger and use a longer screw with a nut, rather than tapping it again. I think if I try to make the hole in the canopy match the new hole in the frame there's no way it'll look decent!

What a bummer. I doubt you will be able to get the tap out now they have welded over the top of it. I doubt you will ever be able to drill through the tap.

It appears to be the rear bow, If it is the rear bow? I would thought put an aluminium strap about an inch or a bit wider on top of the plexiglas and cover the entire bow to hide it. Good luck with it.

Steve
Sonex 892

There goes your Bronze Lindy!

Yeah it's the rear bow. Not too worried about the Lindy!

I haven’t done the canopy yet so I don’t know much about it. Can you fill the plexi hole with clear (silicon?) or whatever substance fills it, and drill a completely new hole half an inch away?

For what it's worth, I actually used longer bolts with nuts on all of my canopy/windscreen bow holes so I wouldn't have to worry about the screws backing out over time (since we can't use loctite, though I think some have used silicone sealant as a threadlocker.) Nothing wrong with going this route unless you don't like the aesthetic of the nuts on the inside, even if it's for just 1 hole. You could even paint the nut black to somewhat hide it visually, but it's probably one of those things that only you would notice down the line.

You mean like this, Steve. I didn't break a tap but thought the "strap" would be a good way to go considering that I used cherry N rivets to attach the canopy to the frame.



Art,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Sonex taildragger #95,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Jabiru 3300 #261

GordonTurner wrote:I haven’t done the canopy yet so I don’t know much about it. Can you fill the plexi hole with clear (silicon?) or whatever substance fills it, and drill a completely new hole half an inch away?

This is what I'd do. Drilling out a tap will make it perfect because you would end up replacing all the parts after the disaster.

Bryan Cotton wrote:

GordonTurner wrote:I haven’t done the canopy yet so I don’t know much about it. Can you fill the plexi hole with clear (silicon?) or whatever substance fills it, and drill a completely new hole half an inch away?

This is what I'd do. Drilling out a tap will make it perfect because you would end up replacing all the parts after the disaster.

Haha so are you saying try to drill through the original hole, or don't even try because I'll end up destroying everything?

What's a good filler for plexiglass? Some kind of epoxy?