B-17 Flying Fortress/44-83735 ~ the Duxford resto thread

B17news · **Posted:** Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:24 pm

awesome thread, very nicely done!

bomberflight · **Posted:** Sat Jun 04, 2011 10:02 am

Quote:

Looks like they are removing the trailing edges from the inner wing panels

Spot on Chuck ! These will come off to assist with maneuvering the inner wing panels out the doors of the American Air Museum

At this point I recommend you guys and gals go and get some coffee ~ so you can settle back to read the lengthy update that's coming next

bomberflight · **Posted:** Sat Jun 04, 2011 10:56 am

Having left full time employment for the first time in 30 years last October ~ I was in the fortunate position to decide I was able to take a "gap year"
I had this vision of finally sorting and indexing all the airplane pictures I've taken since 1978 ...... ( I've got half of 2010 finished ! )

Then they started dismantling the B-17 in the American Air Museum and I found I was going to visit it several times a week to chart progress.
A few weeks back the question was asked ~ why I didn't start to make myself useful and volunteer to do some of the work !

It took as long to ponder the decision ~ as it takes to say "YES".

I'll be doing the basic stuff ~ like paint stripping ~ but hey I'm going to spend the next few months working on a B-17 with a great bunch of guys from the IWM !

So this new chapter in this thread begins with good news and bad news.

The good news is ~ there's gonna be a lot more pictures in the months ahead !

The bad news is ~ there's gonna be a lot more for you to look at !

Shall we make a start ?

I've been selected ( from a group of 1 ) to clamber into the tail gunners position to assist with the removal of the glazing

I'm trying to include some of the roof where I can .....

Though that's not always practical for every shot

The level of interior detailing looked impressive to me

I better include a few pix from the outside too ~ it's the last time it will look like this for some time .....

And now for one after the glazing had been removed

As the tail has been chosen as the first fuselage section for paint removal ~ I wanted to record the face one last time .....

I can testify that my knees were telling me next day that they don't want to spend time like that too often.
How gunners managed to stay kneeling in that position for up to 8 hours in full flying kit ~ I cannot imagine.

Now we're going for a bit of a photo walk around .....

Tokyo Fuel Tanks in the outer wing sections

Good news for Don Price ~ the flaps have already been stripped of paint ! ( Just 5 weeks to your visit for Flying Legends )

I know what this is ...... I turned the label around !

If you cast you're minds back ( or go back a page ) ~ we could see the test area that had been stripped of paint.
Now let's take a closer look .....

Original skin on the left ~ new skin on the right

The original skin ( shown here in black and white ) has some treatable surface corrosion on it

The skin added during the previous restoration is much cleaner

But wait ..... look again. The original skin has original US made rivets ~ with a dimple in the center ( easy to drill it out again )
The new skin was fitted with English rivets ( no dimples ). A "full" restoration will require the English rivets to be drilled out
and correct American ones fitted in their place.

There may or may not be time to explore this option ~ there's a lot of airplane still to uncover !

I've got to show you this data plate inside one of the horizontal stabilizers ~ what's the part number again ?

I few pix of the tail fin ~ prior to paint removal

And finally ~ in case you were begining to think this post would never end .....

We arrive at the end of our wing tip to wing tip tour

More soon

APG85 · **Posted:** Sat Jun 04, 2011 2:48 pm

AWESOME!!!

The Inspector · **Posted:** Sat Jun 04, 2011 3:14 pm

I'm hoping the screws that were installed in the tail compartment windows weren't standard issue 'cause they look like they're about 3 inches long and if 'from factory' that would not have been a fun place in turbulence!

This thread is perfect for those of us who enjoy seeing how stuff was installed and a god send for modellers!!

"what happened to Dave?" 'He got 'screwed' in the turbulence'. :shock:

B17news · **Posted:** Sat Jun 04, 2011 10:26 pm

Any reason this plane couldn't have been restored as a flyer?

Django · **Posted:** Mon Jun 06, 2011 10:42 am

I thought the long screws and speed nuts was a bit odd myself. As for the English rivets, just punch them and save the grief! :lol:

Lookin' good!

bomberflight · **Posted:** Mon Jun 06, 2011 11:57 am

Thanks Django :lol:

~ It's always good to have a Plan B !

Now I only have to figure out how to get a punch centered up precisely for every rivet .......

Hmmm ~ Maybe I better stick to paint stripping for the time being !

I'll put together another picture post tomorrow folks :wink:

SPANNERmkV · **Posted:** Tue Jun 07, 2011 1:23 pm

Pedro,
Paint stripping is how I got in trouble with my hands. Wear proper gloves!
I am looking forward to seeing her in person.

SPANNER

The Inspector · **Posted:** Tue Jun 07, 2011 1:52 pm

The BRIGGS Co. on the part I.D. plate inside the horizontal stab was from the BRIGGS Body Manufacturing Co. who did lots of tooling and stamping of car body panels for most of the car makers in the 20's and 30' including most of the Model 'A' bodies (Ford made bodies have really subtle differences), BRIGGS could turn out a Model 'A' body cheaper per unit than FORD could :shock:

and substantial numbers of different panels and complete bodies for Chrysler, Packard (standard bodies, not coachwork) NASH, and other independants. They did very few parts for GM as they owned FISHER who used to be an independant coachbuilder. After the war BRIGGS faded away and were gone by the early 50's after being bought out by CHRYSLER, and the decline of small independant auto makers.

HUDSON did a lot of fuselage assembly for MARTIN on the B-26.

bomberflight · **Posted:** Tue Jun 07, 2011 3:06 pm

Thanks for the tip about the gloves Don ~ I got thru 3 pairs today :shock:

I'm going to pick up on the info from The Inspector about Briggs Manufacturing and we'll head into this post from there .....

Welcome to the "Flap Detective" Show !

This the data plate on the Left Flap

Note the number ~ is that a six or a nine ?

And these are number five or three !

After some careful measuring ~ it turns out each number represents a slightly shorter or longer piece.

Now lets look at the right Flap

It appears to be in much better shape ~ it could almost be brand new !

However ~ we think that this one's actually older than the Left one.

Could it be the Right Flap was built to last and the Left Flap was built to win a war ?

While we're mulling that thought over ~ we can take a look at the Tail Fin .....

This is how it looked on Monday morning

The paint stripper was sprayed on on Sunday and then covered in plastic. This creates a micro environment in which the chemical
penetrates through the paint and oxidizes to form a layer of air between the skin and the paint

So while we can see the code letters ~ they are no longer attached to the airframe

Fast forward a couple of hours and the paint is gone and the Tail Fin was been washed down.

More cleaning today to remove any lingering traces of paint or grime

And it's the same story with the Tail Gunners position

Spray it ~ Wrap it ~ Let it cook slowly ~ And ......

Hmmm the top section has cleaned up nicely ~ but the lower section put up more resistance ~ so that's getting a repeat process

And it should be ready to tackle on Wednesday

The next post will take a look at progress on those wing sections over in the American Air Museum

Stay tuned ! :wink:

The Inspector · **Posted:** Tue Jun 07, 2011 3:30 pm

It's a 9 because it's inside the lower lobe of a B and has what appears to be a 'source accepted' stylized 'A' stamp in the upper lobe of the B. Boeing (and I'm sure everyone else) uses either a company QC Inspector based @ the subcontractors plant or, if it's a trusted, proven supplier their own in house QC to do 'source accepted' buyoffs on assemblies so the paperwork is matched up to the line # and the part comes out of the box and right to the assembly line installation point.
Of course the Boeing auditor teams would still pay regular visits to the supplier to be certain everything was going correctly.
And I'll bet the squared stamp with the 'a n' in it on the right is the government QC guys stamp, and the '1109' is the assigned BRIGGS QC Inspectors 'bug' number assigned only to him so if things go wrong, they can ask him 'WHAZZUP?"

I wonder if Dan Jones who's trying to figure out how to rivet up a STEARMAN trim Tab looks @ the flap tubular spar all solid riveted and pulls his hair out?

The "K" holes about mid point on the ribs do two things, 1) indexing point for the stamping dies that form the rib and 2) running a string through them will show you if the control surface is bent or distorted.

Django · **Posted:** Tue Jun 07, 2011 4:25 pm

That is looking great.

Please keep the NMF.

Please keep the NMF.

Please keep the NMF.

Oh and...

Please keep the NMF. :lol:

bomberflight · **Posted:** Wed Jun 08, 2011 11:10 am

Django ~

Can you pop across the Atlantic to help with polishing ?

Can you pop across the Atlantic to help with polishing ?

Can you pop across the Atlantic to help with polishing ?

And bring about a hundred friends to help !

Is it me ~ or has this thread developed an echo

peter · **Posted:** Wed Jun 08, 2011 11:18 am

I would think polished metal or silver finish would be nice but The B17 at Hendon is already in a silver finish...

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B-17 Flying Fortress/44-83735 ~ the Duxford resto thread

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