There's still a lot of work to do in the back half of the plane, but I don't want to go crazy with riveting and final assembly until I've painted parts and run some wiring (which I need to research first). The front deck basically includes all of the panel to firewall and is up next. The first step is making a bunch of smaller angle parts. As usual, laying out the various angles and holes took more time than I thought it would.
The panel itself requires a piece of 1/16" angle that follows the top contour. In order to be able to do that, it has to have angles cut out of one leg to allow it to bend. I measured and drilled holes for the vertex of each cutout. The plans show that each cutout is a 15 degree wedge. I wish they would have just listed measurements for the edge of each cutout, but no. I took the easy way out and printed a little jig to make it easier to do the layout.
Here's half of the stiffener. The other half mirrors this.
The stiffener will set on the back side (fore) of the panel.
