Brief Description: Started riveting the panel framework to firewall.
I had drilled the center rib of the forward fuselage framework to the firewall of the QB fuselage (whick was not prepunched) and screwed up the rib by trying to match drill the rib to the firewall. The drill bit took its time going through the stainless steel firewall and wandered around making the holes in the rib flange way too big and oblong. The positioning of the center rib was not quite right (I lhad learned when I clecoed on the skin) so I had to drill some more holes (this time through the stainless steel firewall first then into the aluminum flange on the rib) to properly locate the rib. I added some 0.032 doublers to the rib flange to give the rivets something to hold to through those big holes in the rib. It looks like crap but seems to be ok.
Trying to recover from a mistake makes one really tired and frustrated, but gives one a feeling of accomplishment to overcome the lack of concentration which caused the screwup in the first place. The left and right ribs were easily riveted to the prepunched firewall holes. I should have done a lot of measuring on the drawings checking the lateral skin hole spacing between the ribs before placing the center rib since the holes were not prepunched.
The blue line shows the correct placement of the holes for the center rib.
