I expected this to be a long day of old fashioned drilling and deburring but it turned out to be a very short day of mostly nothing.
First off, I riveted the cabin frame brackets in place. These had been laying around for ages so I expanded the holes to A5 size and went to riveting.
The forward top skin sits on top of the firewall and instrument panel, under the windscreen. It has a notch in it that the cabin frame goes through and unless you dismantle the firewall there is no way you will be able to get it to fit. The video (and several forum posts) suggest cutting out various shaped pieces from the skin and so that was what I did.
With the instrument panel clamped to the frame, I clecoed the top skin to the panel and then to the firewall….
Except…. there are no holes in either the firewall or the top skin. The book says to back drill through the top skin into the firewall but there aren’t any holes to back drill through. I wondered whether this was a mistake in the guide or with my skin so I decided that I would investigate on the forums and work out how to get the holes drilled.
I’ve since confirmed that the skin does indeed ship with no holes and that I am to locate them myself. I think what I am going to do is to make sure that the skin is flat against the firewall edge and then trace the top of the firewall under the skin. I can then measure half the width of the firwewall edge and mark a hole that distance from the line, spaced out per the plans. If I want to be super accurate then I can probably draw the line from the other side of the firewall too.
One thing that isn’t clear from the plans is how straight the instrument panel should be. I’m going to guess it should be parallel to the firewall but I don’t see anything that states this.