Today was devoted primarily to riveting both cabin side rails and forward fuselage decks in place in preparation for fitting the canopy frame. Way back when, during the time I was assembling the fuselage, I decided not to rivet these components in place since I didn't know how the canopy was going to be attached. During the last session I realized that I would need to have these permanently installed in order to mark and drill through them for the canopy frame, so out with the rivet gun and bucking bars.
I have a feeling that this job would have been a bit easier if I had attached the side rails before I put the skins on, but it turned out that with a couple of exceptions, I was able to get most of the rivets set using a couple of bucking bars. There were two or three rivets around the bulkheads that required a long thin bar, but having plenty of options in the toolbox, I was able to find one that worked and got it done.
Once I finished riveting I got out the Dremel and trimmed some of the seat backrest attach points on the F-704 bulkhead. These had been bugging me for awhile, and since they will be visible when the aircraft is complete, I wanted to make sure they were trimmed and looked reasonably professional.
