I am not completely done with my wings yet as I still need to drill the flap hinge to the wing, but even with that yet to be done, I decided to start working on the fuselage.  It is ABOUT TIME!!!!!  It felt good to start working on something different...

First thing that Van's calls out making is the F-601J-L (-R) angles. DWG 19 states to make the angles out of AA6-187x2x2 1/2.  After digging out the fuselage parts, I found the angle stock.  This is some thick stuff>>  Translation>>>  The band saw ain't going to cut this worth a crap.

After cutting the angles to length, I clamped them together.  One of my developing pet peeves is that when I have to fabricate two identical components, I have a hard time making them look identical.  So to solve that, I clamped the two angles together.  I broke out the Vixen file to dress up the edges.  As expected, the band saw somewhat mangled the edge being cut.  I used the vixen file to straighten and dress up the edges.  After some significant filing, the angles started looking pretty good.

I used  two clamps to hold the angles together.  When filing, I secured the angles in the bench vice.

After 20 minutes of filing, this one edge started looking really good...

After over an hour of filing, I was getting close.

OKAY, when starting the firewall, Van's makes mention that the stainless steel firewall can be very sharp.  I am slow to learn.... Within 10 minutes, I was lining up parts on the firewall and couldn't figure out where all this "red" stuff was coming  from.  Sure enough, a quick scan of my hands and I had sliced my finger open.  It wasn't like a paper cut in that when you get a paper cut, it hurts.  Slicing my finger on the stainless firewall, I didn't even feel it when it happened.

For those unfortunate bleeding incidents (especially on your hands), having a bottle of New Skin around is very helpful.  It is a flexible bandage which worked great at preventing me from re-opening my new injury.

The rest of the day while handling the firewall, I religiously kept my mechanics gloves on.  The firewall is so sharp, I could see slivers of leather throughout the day as the firewall was doing its best to cut through my gloves.

Alright, after recovering my minor trauma injury, I moved on to fabricating Brake Plate (F-601TD). This is only needed for the tail dragger flavor of the RV-7...  I cut the brake plate to dimensions as called out in DWG-19 from .063 2024-T3 Alclad.  Next thing was to figure out how to align the reinforcement plate to be centered over the pre-punched holes in the firewall.

I basically drew vertical and horizontal lines extending from the center rivet holes.

I also drew horizontal and vertical center lines on the brake plate.  I then overlaid the two sets of center lines and clamped into place.

I bought these large vise grip clamps and they worked great to hold the brake plate into position.  Once I got it locked down and verified that everything was lined up, I flipped the firewall over and drilled through the pre-punched holes in the firewall, clecoing as I went.

The larger holes are drilled out to 7/16".  I used a well Boelubed unibit to drill these holes to size.

Everything looks well centered and squared up.  Good thing, I would hate to have to replace the firewall due to a boo boo.

Next I fabricated the F-601E-1 stiffener using angle stock from AA6-063x3/4x3/4.  This was pretty straight forward.  I can't figure out why Van's didn't have this angle pre-cut and pre-punched like all the other angles on the firewall.

Next task was to fabricate the F-601P spacers which go under the upper engine mounts and above the F-601D stiffeners.

Once I got the spacers prepped to my satisfaction, I clamped them in place using the vice grip clamp I used earlier, flipped the firewall over and drilling through the pre-punched holes in the firewall.

The spacers just fit in there perfectly. 

After about 10 hours of fabricating and drilling, this is what I have to show for it.

I wonder if I will ever finish this project???