(page 21-02) My concerns about the long rivets....                                   

...through the massive and expensive center section channel were, for the most part, unfounded.  The operations called for in attaching the baggage floor to the ribs and center section did, however, require some careful thought, and offered ample opportunity for missteps.  In retrospect, the words in the build manual say exactly what needs to be done.  It just took me a while to believe the words.  Along the perimeter of the T-shaped cutout in the baggage floor, some holes require dimpling with #40, #30 or #19 dimple dies, and some holes need to be left alone.  Determining which was which was the issue.  The #19 holes, clearly labeled in the manual, are the holes corresponding to the center of a nutplate, through which a screw

will eventually be inserted.  No other holes corresponding to the center of a nutplate get dimpled.  The #40 holes are for the flush rivets attaching the nutplates to the floor.  The #30 holes are for flush rivets attaching the floor to the ribs.  There are a few other random holes whose purpose I don't yet know and which don't fall into the above categories.  All of the other #30 holes in the baggage floor are for round-head rivets which attach the floor to the ribs (requiring use of my favorite tool -- the pneumatic puller).

The pulled rivets which attach the floor ribs to the center-section aft bulkhead are required to have the manufactured head against the bulkhead, meaning the hand puller (the pneumatic puller won't fit) must be operated in the relatively narrow space between the fore and aft center-section bulkheads.  This was not fun, especially for the rivet closest to the channel web (shown).  This required use of one of the little wedges whose manufacture was the very first step in the construction of the kit.  The hole is so close to the bulkhead that the wedge wouldn't fit against the bulkhead without bending the shank of the rivet to about a 20-degree angle relative to the web.  Worked great after the swearing subsided.