Cliff Charlesworth Olympia build in Bishop, CA.

[Greg Smith]

As usual, great advice, Peter, and very clear. This will help me proceed with more confidence. I will order the canopy immediately and eyeball everything when it arrives before going further. your pictures in the thread will also be used! Thanks, as always for your time and very rapid reply. Greatly appreciated.
I note your comments, Robbie. Actually, although I have dealt with various canopies, I've no idea what they have been made of. I've always used canopy glue successfully, but appreciate your input about different plastic: I'll ask about the material and certainly do a test on a piece of scrap. I'm not in a hurry any more...
I guess that my picture was not over the size limit; good to know.Now I just have to repeat the lucky keystrokes which got it posted!

[Peter Balcombe]

Greg,
Robbie is correct about the canopy material. It will be PETG. I just couldn't think of the correct name at the time!!

[chris williams]

Sorry to have to contradict Robbie, but I've been using Pacer canopy glue with PETG for years now without a problem. It's big advantage is that it dries clear, so any mistakes are harder to see... Having said that, I always mask the canopy inside and out before glueing and the same for painting

[Peter Balcombe]

Greg,
15x2mm steel blade & brass box material is stocked in the UK by Gliders Distribution for approx. £14 for a metre length of each.
As you only need just under half that for an Oly, (my joiner strip is 18" long) perhaps they could cut it in half to ease shipping.
If they cannot do that then I am sure we could get some and ship it to you.
Meanwhile, the attached photos show you where I extracted my coaming, fitted the lip & the finished canopy.
Peter

[RobbieB]

Sorry to have to contradict Robbie, but I've been using Pacer canopy glue with PETG for years now without a problem. It's big advantage is that it dries clear, so any mistakes are harder to see... Having said that, I always mask the canopy inside and out before glueing and the same for painting

Yes, it's Pacer I've always used in the past on other canopy materials with great success but it was only with PETG material I found the problem. When I spoke to Roly's immediate successor (Derek, I think it was) he said to the best of his knowledge there wasn't a suitable adhesive for these materials, it being a polyethylene. That wasn't an issue for him as the bulk of his output was going to clients who didn't require any gluing process - typically moulded product box inserts and the like.

You may get some initial appearance of adhesion but in my experience it takes very little effort to pull it off. The problems relating to gluing the stuff are well documented on the net - that's why I eventually resorted to using epoxy, the last thing I wanted to use; and that is not really 'gluing' in the real sense, just keying.

[chris williams]

I guess I must be lucky then, Robbie... When I had to replace the Petrel canopy when it fell off it's perch, the old one put up quite fight!

[RobbieB]

Chris,

I would like to go back and have another look at this as using epoxy for this process is not my idea of a fun day out. I'll play around with a few test pieces and see what happens.

I will report back; time to give Greg his thread back.

[Greg Smith]

I'm glad my thread has led to a little discussion that might be of value beyond my selfish puzzlements about the Oly. Great pictures, Peter: and advice. Thanks for both. I'll get on to Sarik soon, and report back, but it will probably be a while. Thanks for info about the wing joiners: this will also be followed up on.
Best to all: Greg.

[RobbieB]

Ok, reporting back as promised.

In the photo above the top piece of ply had two separate pieces of PETG canopy material glued to it. On the left was the piece that used cyno and in trying to separate the material from the ply the joint would not give way - it just destroyed the ply - the bits coming away still stuck to the canopy. Predictably of course, the cyno had made the material very brittle.

On the right, the PETG was glued with Pacer Canopy Glue and unfortunately came off very, very easily. The remnants of the glue can still be seen stuck to the ply.

The lower piece was glued with slow set epoxy; I haven't been able to get them apart yet.

All samples were roughened and hard clamped for 24 hours.

[Greg Smith]

So I wonder if the canopy could be masked sufficiently to stop cyano blooming it. Or perhaps thin the epoxy...