I trimmed the windshield like a little old lady. First worked on getting the top part of the vertical sides trimmed so the rear of the windshield would rest even with the back edge of the skylight angle. These trims were along a line drawn from a point from 1/4" - 1/8" at the top of the vertical to a point about midway down the vertical part of the windshield. It took multiple cuts to finally line up with the skylight angle. When you're working on this, you'll notice there is a "curled lip" in the "glass" where the windshield touches the top of the vertical air frame section. At first I was tempted to trim this curl away during the initial fitting. Don't! When fitting the windshield, this curl neatly seals that area.

I wasn't trying to make the overall windshield fit during this skylight phase. Once the skylight angle was matched up, the top part of the vertical fit but the lower part of the windshield still need trimming. If you stood at the side of the airplane, the top of the windshield was in place but the lower section stuck out too far towards the nose. This is where I went into timid, little ol' lady mode and started cutting thin pie shaped pieces from the vertical edge. The point of the pie was the top corner of the vertical part of the windshield. This part fit and didn't need to have more material removed. The wide part of the pie removed 1/8" the later 1/16" from the bottom part of the vertical edge. When I was fitting the top part of the windshield, the cuts only went about half way down the vertical section of the windshield and the long, top to bottom line wasn't straight. The first long cut corrected this problem and the windshield fit much more neatly in place. After each pie was cut away, the windshield and front part of the boot cowl were installed. At first the rear of the boot cowl will not line up correctly with the air frame. When you start getting close with multiple pie shaped trims, you are certain to press the rear of the boot cowl and discover everything shifts into place. What you have likely done is shift the windshield forward to create a gap at the top of the vertical section and mess up the skylight angle. Just continue patiently taking away thin pie cuts and you'll eventually get a perfect fit. Don't get exasperated and decide a 1/4" cut will speed up the process. A 1/16" cut results in a more than 1/16" move of the boot cowl.

This description will sound hopelessly confusing until you get to the windshield installation. Hopefully it will be some help to people at that stage of the project. I'm sure there are several ways to do this marking and trimming. Including the factory recommendation of fitting the windshield over the outside the air frame, making a mark, and doing a single cut. It would have put a lot of pressure on my windshield to force it over the air frame so I took a couple of days with this approach.

If I were a first time buyer and had the opportunity to visit the factory, I would spend a few minutes congratulating Brandon on his beautiful work with the wings. Then I would ask to meet the guy who fits the cowling and windshield and spend a lot of time trying to learn his techniques!