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The instructions say to tweak the bend of the steel rollbar to fit the fuselage, to within 1/16". Mine was about 0.1 inch out, so I thought I'd just spread it out a little bit.

No problem - the instructions say "It can be adjusted quite easily by hooking one end behind something and pulling..... Go Sloooowly. It is easy to do too much.

NOT!

I don't want to meet the guy who build the first one and wrote the instructiions about how easy it was to bend - he must be a monster!

After a failed attempt at bending it by hand, and a second failed attempt at jumping on / hangiing from it (don't ask, wasn't pretty and there was some personal injury) I had to develop the hilbilly bending brake shown below.

It took a pull of more than 2 inches (which was where the rachet strap ran out of steam ) to get the 0.1" of bend that I needed. Now my toolbox has a roll-bar shaped dent in the top of it.

After that, it was another "easy" task to drill the 4 holes and make the 4 spacers. BTW - I wish I'd read ahead when I made the aft canopy decks. Vans doesn't give you any room to access the bottom of the rear bolt.

But, it's done so I'll count this as a mini-milestone. I'm sure the rest of the canopy will be much easier

"hilbilly bending brake" I like that!

Glad it worked out in the end, too bad about the brake yielding. So many things are 'easy' in the process, ONLY if you have done it before.

Looks like the roll bar is getting ready to go for a walk.

Mike Balzer

The roll bar for my airplane was to wide and we were unable to bend it. I used 3/4" pipe clamp and would get it to the width I wanted. Then when I took the clamp off it sprang back to orginal size. We over bent it with the clamp and same result. We two and three of us trying bending it all to no avail. I telephoned Van's and they checked their stock and none came as close to the correct width as mine was. There advice was to force to down with pipe clamp, drill it and install it! Which is what we did and I have 80 hours flying time.

Wow. Gives a clue to the strength of the fuse.

Spike

Yet ANOTHER fine reason for going with the tip up option

1:1_Scale wrote:Yet ANOTHER fine reason for going with the tip up option

AMEN

The only time I wish I had a tip up is when I have work behind the instrument panel. It sure is nice to taxi with the canopy slid back when it is 98 F!