Warbird Information Exchange

Nice!

As promised, film at 11. the LH wing tip repair.

As removed from the aircraft



Working on the big one


Inspection after the first polishing


Final polishing


Another angle


Before


The finished pair

_________________
"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

Sounds a bit like a broken record but I simply had to post again to say that this thread is just awesome. Thank you for sharing your work Scott, it is very inspiring.

Nice results Scott.
What do you have to do to "un-crash" those wing tips?

Andy

Andy, as expected, I have a ton of hammers of various shapes and sizes. I have one favorite jewelers ball peen hammer that is very light and small. I find it works these aluminum bits very well. The trick is what you pound them on. If you use steel (hammer) on steel "anvil" you will stretch the aluminum and never correct the issue. I used a slab of PVC with a thin rubber sheet laid on it so I was actually pounding into the rubber. With dissimmilar materials (steel hammer and rubber anvil) the aluminum will actually shrink which is what is needed in this case to bring the aluminum dents back to the original surface. Sounds weird, I know but it actually works, as you can see.

To work some of the final blemishes out, I used the same hammer but actually used the PVC sheet as the anvil. After I am happy that 90+% of the hammer work is done, I use 600 grit sand paper so to remove as little material as possible. I'll then polish and work the light reflection to make perfect. Sometimes I have to polish, rework, sand and polish again.

Another trick I use is to clean the backside of the part and "polish" with scotchbrite to reveal the high spots on the back which are the low spots on the outer surface. You have to read the braille with your fingers and read the light reflections with your eyes.

Hope that helps.

_________________
"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

Sure does.
I'd love to see your favourite hammer

Uh............. ...........this is the warbird sight, right?

I have a chin cowl from a Canadian Tiger Moth. (this is the part that is at the front of the queue, when someone crashes a Tiger Moth)
I'm convinced that someone with your skills could probably un-crash it. I'd love to learn how.

Thanks Scott

Andy

I'll post some pictures of what I used. You can follow my Dennison Enterprises LLC FaceBook page as well.

_________________
"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

Hammer rack and the tools used for the wing tip repairs.



The jewelers mandrels were used as picks from the inside of the tip when finishing against the PVC block. Jewelers ball peen hammer, PVC block and rubber sheet.

_________________
"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

Trying to get caught up on time sensitive projects while waiting for some other bits relating to the long term project to arrive. Quick Pilatus PC-12 new engine replacement wanting polished exhaust pipes. Were a beotch for sure.



Then made a new fuel door for the F-86. Not a flat plate however... The original was magnesium and would not hold a polish and painted looked ugly. New door is 2024-T3 so polish matches.





Since it appears that the Orenda 10 engine for the F-86 will be here in the next couple weeks, full court press for getting the airframe done. Restoring the speed brake panels and wells. Beautiful forrest green before, yuk. Wells stripped from prior post. Speed brake will be polished bare aluminum with chromate behind the skin. More to come...

As received with beautiful forrest green doors

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

Outstanding work! Love this thread, but I might be biased.

So, reworking the Sabre speed brakes and wells as mentioned. Stripped those forrest green uglies, and had already stripped the wells. Polished the inner skins and decided to chromate the very inside of the brake panels as they didn't look all that good on one of the panels as the continued stripping effort was not time well spent. Masked the panel and painted with an airbrush. Next is to polish the outer skins and return to the project. Then chromate the wells in the fuselage.

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

Great work - note however that period shots indicate 'dark green' brake interiors and wells: the chromate looks a lot lighter and I think that 'forest green' isn't far off what NAA would have applied.

But these surface treatments, not being subject to FS color specs, do seem to vary a lot in tone.

Either way I guess the natural metal finish is a maintenance (visual inspection) aid?

First off, this is a Canadair MkVI not North American. I have many historical books with period photos showing green chromate wells and bare panels as well as input from the scale modeling group that are really picky about accuracy confirming the same. I think that field work as well as crew chief choices may have led to many variations. Bottom line is this is what we are looking to have as shown on the Canadian Golden Hawk F-86. Thanks for the input.

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

Understood: I realise it's a Sabre 6, but assumed it was being repainted as a USAF Korean-era F-86F? I've written a few books on the Sabre and thought I could help.

Always appreciate the help. Can you turn me on to your books? When you see so many variations of paint schemes, it's hard to say what's correct so I just do what the owner wants and since we found examples like this, off we go.

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."