There are two curved ribs that define the shape of the aft top skin...they stiffen the canopy cutout. When you get them in the kit, they don't quite fit the curvature of the skin.

You have to beat them into submission, mostly by fluting the inboard flange. The structural engineers I work with have been gradually educating me, so the first question I asked myself was "How do I know what the right curvature is?" Well, the sad answer is that until I try to fit the canopy, I won't know. Fortunately, these shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to re-do if I'm way off.

More fluting. The flanges also have to be brought back into the right angle...it's all part of the fun of bashing aluminum.

Almost have this one where I want it. One hour has gone by. I only drilled my finger once. I sure hope blood does not corrode aluminum.

Thank goodness for a pre-punched kit! The holes in the skin act as a drill guide for drilling the rib. I marked the centerline of the rib's flange...if I can see the Sharpie mark through the hole in the skin, I know I'm drilling in the right place. Good edge distance and all that.

Now the next one is almost done.

See the gap between the rib and the blue skin? Ever optimistic, I'm assuming that the skin is in the right place and the rib has the wrong curvature, so I fluted the rib some more.

Now I'm match-drilling the skin to the underlying structure (most of which was pre-punched), in the timeless RV ritual of drill/deburr/dimple/rivet.

My youngest daughter offered to help. Definition of Trust: letting your seven-year-old near your airplane with a power tool in her hand.

Definition of Fatherhood: your seven-year-old hits you with a hammer and you don't curse. Not even when she admonishes me that it's because my hand was in the wrong place.