Good to see someone here actually building something again!
Not sure where this seal the wood thing came from - never bothered with that although very carefully gluing is critical to getting that scribed siding in place and gluing the edges is really important to limiting later opening up of the sides. I usually wire brush the sides and ends (where possible) with a sift brass wire brush to get everything clean and the scribed valleys clear of debris.
Aligning grabs is annoying and tedious; a jig works if it's the right one for the car; I just get a mm ruler and after setting the spacing, measure over the distance for the grab - hemostats are lovely tools for holding and inserting grab irons into their mounting holes.
Was there no brake stirrup to mount the end of the brake shaft into then?
I'm still using Goo to mount the metal parts to my cars although I'll add a wee bit of medium viscosity CA on the metal part for the final mounting. Very hard to re-position or remove after that unless you cut it off.
Wish there was a good source of those corner braces on the ends!
