I finished deburring and countersinking the cabin frame components this morning. When our two year old went down for her nap, I came back out and primed all of the components and then started assembly.
I’ve seen several builders complain that their cabin frames came out wider or narrower than intended. I think this is likely due to the slight amount of play in the splice plate rivet holes. Although the play is tiny at the splice plate (in the middle joining the left and right halves of each channel), the amount of play at the ends of the channel will be much more (easily 1/4″ or more). To help ensure that this doesn’t happen to me, I clamped the channels back in the sizing jig before squeezing the splice plate rivets.
After the front and back channels are joined with the splice plates, the straps can be clecoed into the forward channel so that solid rivets can be squeezed here. After all solid rivets are squeezed, the aft channel can be installed and blind rivets can be squeezed.
I didn’t get any more in process pictures, but here’s the completed cabin frame.
Here you can see the solid rivets in the forward channel (lower) and blind rivets in the aft channel (upper). After everything was riveted, I measure the channel and I was only 1/32″ narrower than the plans called for. This appears to be more accurate than most people end up with.
