Painting the inside of the cabin is much easier when the cabin top is removable, and with only a few items left to do before permanently installing the cabin top, I took the opportunity to put some color on the project. As mentioned earlier, the cabin interior will be a dark grey and black. I started by cleaning and prepping the tunnel walls and footwells. Most of this will be covered by the black carpet, but I wanted to make sure any areas not covered would be black. The SEM is really easy to work with and two nice coats provided plenty of coverage. I then used a low luster clear to help provide some further protection and sealant. I didn’t worry about overspray since the carpet will hide the imperfections.

The rest of the interior is the dark grey so I prepped again and sprayed the remaining parts of the cabin which will not be covered by Aerosport panels. I’m not a huge fan of painting because it’s so much prep work, but the results are rewarding. It’s nice to see a finished surface finally.

Sean also sent me his updated LED lights for the overhead so I got those wired up and installed using nutplates and the standard micro-Molex connectors. I really appreciate working with fellow builders as vendors because they provide great support. Upon receipt, there were a few LED boards that didn’t work properly. I gave him a quick text and new ones were on the way in a few days. He later did some troubleshooting and found out the wire used to secure the boards was shorting them out. So I pulled the wire and simply filled in the back with black silicone and had no other issues. The lights are great quality and very bright, providing a nice pattern of light. Night loading should be very easy with these on the overhead and in the doors.

As typical, the big moment of putting the cabin top on for good was somewhat anti-climatic! I am glad I won’t be Atlas-ing the thing on and off anymore, as that was getting a bit tiresome. It is secured with a ton of pop rivets on the rear and screws up front. The challenge to it, however, is setting the frame in a bed of flox all around the door areas. I had the Mrs. come out to help mix epoxy and spread it on the fuselage. Even with slow hardener, we were pushed for time getting it all mixed, applied evenly, and positioning the top on just right. I chose not to drill the screw holes yet and clecoing the cabin top was much quicker and easier at this point.

I cleaned up the remaining flox from inside and and put the rivets in. All in all, a bit stressful for us but a rewarding step seeing the canoe form finally disappear! The finish kit is coming next and I’m pretty pleased with the amount of progress I’m making this year.