Window Frames and Canopy Support Finished!

My fabrication goal over my Christmas holidays was to finish the canopy window frames, and I’m happy to say Mission Accomplished!

It ended up being an incredible amount of work, but the process got faster and faster as I moved along.  I learned a bunch of tricks along the way that eventually made things move quicker.  I also ended up moving from 1/4″ plywood as a backing material to 1/4″ MDF which didn’t splinter like the plywood and also had some nice flexibility.

Today I was able to finish up the canopy support skeleton. These 5/16″ bars will be fiberglassed right into the canopy shell to provide a solid/rigid frame so that the fiberglass doesn’t flex as much.  It should also provide some good tie-in spots for the wiper arm supports.

You can see the two support arms that go from the skeleton out to the window frames.  Once I have the frames secured, I’ll end up welding these pieces to the top of the frames as well as welding small braces from the bottom of the window frame to the bottom ridge of the skeleton.  This should be a nice solid canopy piece once I’m all done.

The final part of the window frames will be creating anchor points for the bar that runs just below the top of the window which was used as a slide for the fake wipers on the movie car.  Below you can see an up-close photo of what I’m talking about from the 92 Batman Returns car.  Once I have these anchor points (which should just be a couple of nuts) welded into the frame, I’ll glue the backing of the window frames to the canopy and do the welding of the tie-ins with the skeleton.