This afternoon I started squeezing rivets on the cabin frame. I have had trouble with the width of the frame changing when I add the stiffeners and work on the dang thing. Last night I thought of an idea that I wanted to test out today. I put wooden stops on the table the exact width the cabin frame should be. As I riveted, I kept the bottom of the frame against the stops. I squeezed all of the flush rivets for the front channel and fitted the back channel together. The width came out exact. I'm hoping when I add the blind rivets to hold on the back channel, everything will stay the same.
I think the key is rounding the edges of the straps so they fit down completely in the channel. Everything went together much better when the straps were kept tight to the channels.
As I have been looking carefully at the plans, there was something that has been bothering me. When I go to attach the channel to the fuselage, the plans are different then the top of the fuselage looks. I was planning on calling Vans on Monday, but found the problem. The cnopy deck (F-721B-R) needs to be trimmed for the tip-up canopy. I'm not sure if they forgot to trim it on the quickbuild fuselage... or just left it for me to trim. It seems like it would have been much easier trimming the pieces BEFORE they were installed. But, I'm sure it will be possible.
Another item I have been fretting on is bending the 732D angle to 88 degrees. It ended up being super simple. I put the angle in the vice and squeezed it just a bit. It came out perfect the first time. (It takes very little pressure to bend it 2 degrees)
