Fri Dec 29, 2006 8:06 pm
OK Gary so why are you picking on a box of rocks. They have feelings too. the work you are doing is something the CAF has put off for way too many years, but it looks like you have a handle on it. I wish you had more time and could do everything at one sitting, but know cash flow is important. Those old machines would probably bankrupt someone trying to bring them up to OSHA liking. Nothing like having big brother watching.
Fri Dec 29, 2006 8:37 pm
Gary, You are a better S/M man than 90% of the mechanics at the Lazy U " United" No B.S. You are doing a great job!! 
P.S. Love the pictures of the presses! United has a drop forge to make the lip for Jet engine inlet cowls and I'm told they used the same machine in the 40's to make cowling repair filler parts for B-17s.
P.S. Love the pictures of the presses! United has a drop forge to make the lip for Jet engine inlet cowls and I'm told they used the same machine in the 40's to make cowling repair filler parts for B-17s.
Fri Dec 29, 2006 9:27 pm
I have created a seperate thread to deal with the "Guns for Lil" fund. You can see our progress here:
http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/p ... hp?t=10436
http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/p ... hp?t=10436
Sat Dec 30, 2006 1:16 am
[quote="retroaviation"]
The cost of the gun (are you sitting down?) is $895 each.
YIKES!! ... gasp ... gaaaag ,,,, choke! ... that's 50% more than estimated. But, was there ever a restoration that didn't cost far more than the estimate!? We'll stick by our offer to sponsor one gun, Gary ,,, get that donor plate ready for the tail gun.
Paul
CAF First Observation Detachment
The cost of the gun (are you sitting down?) is $895 each.
YIKES!! ... gasp ... gaaaag ,,,, choke! ... that's 50% more than estimated. But, was there ever a restoration that didn't cost far more than the estimate!? We'll stick by our offer to sponsor one gun, Gary ,,, get that donor plate ready for the tail gun.
Paul
CAF First Observation Detachment
Sat Dec 30, 2006 6:12 am
I got here about an hour late today and was feeling pretty pissed about it. So, here I was, thinking this was going to be yet another one of those days where I'm grumpy and mad. What I needed was my morning "pick me up." For most people, it's a hot cup of coffee that does that. For me, it's reading the WIX forum. And I have to to tell you that this morning y'all have put me in a much better mood.
I was confident that the price of the guns would've run off everyone from trying to pitch in to help us out with them, but boy was I wrong. The support we've gotten for this project from Scott and all of the WIXers out there has been amazing. I sincerely appreciate it very much and will make sure that you all get the credit you deserve for helping us out.
Thank you!!!
Gary
I was confident that the price of the guns would've run off everyone from trying to pitch in to help us out with them, but boy was I wrong. The support we've gotten for this project from Scott and all of the WIXers out there has been amazing. I sincerely appreciate it very much and will make sure that you all get the credit you deserve for helping us out.
Thank you!!!
Gary
Sat Dec 30, 2006 7:02 am
So here's the continuance of the update from yesterday evening......
While Daniel and the volunteers were knocking out other projects on the airplane during the day, I have pretty much been busy with the clerical end of my job. Paperwork, phone calls, tracking down parts, and so on. Ugh! That's certainly not what I look forward to doing all day. However, that is why I get out here at 3 a.m. nearly every morning, so I can at least try to get some actual work done. So yesterday, I more or less finished up the end cap for the lower portion of the tailgunner's compartment. Here's how it worked out..........
The first thing I had to do was to cut out the remaining portion of that old bashed up spinner and get it back into a basic shape that I could work with. So after cutting it out, I used the hammer and shot bag to bang the large dent out. It kind of makes it look like it went through a West Texas hail storm.........
After that, I just took it over to the English wheel to work out the dents from the hammer. It was important for me to use a light pinch on the dies so that I didn't actually stretch the metal out of shape. My only goal at this point in the process was to smooth it out.........
There, that's good enough for me to get started. There will be more wheeling later.........
The piece was much too large for me to even start with, so I just cut a couple of the corners off with the saw blade on the die grinder. One thing I don't think I've mentioned before is that when using the saw blade or even sanding discs on aluminum (particularly this rather soft aluminum), it is very important to keep it lubricated. I am using Boelube here, but when I run out, I'll probably just go get a bar of soap.........
Just like most of these "first steps" in this project, I had serious doubts that I'd ever be able to actually make it all work out after clamping the piece on for the first time. You can see that you have to use your imagination to even catch a glimpse of what you want the finished product to look like.........
So after trying to work out in my head how I'm gonna make this work, I pressed on. The Sharpie marks you see in this photo (viewed looking inside the fairing) are only there for a general reference. The outer line is obviously a rough sketch of what will be the edge of the material, while the circles in the center tell me the areas that will need to be stretched the most in order for that edge to end up meeting the other peice of the fairing.........
Once the piece is marked, I go to the shot bag and English wheel. There is a lot of back and forth, back and forth during this step. It's much easier to go back and stretch the material more than it is to start over because you've stretched too far.........
You can see how it slowly came into position, as compared to when I first marked it........
Once I was happy with the general fit, I wiped off all of my previous marks and re-marked the edge. I then went over to my Beverly Shear and cut off the excess material. I used this shear vs. the saw blade at this point so that I could have more control over what was cut. This will end up being the final cut before final trimming and welding, so attention to detail here is important........
One last check of the fit before welding it all together (by the way it fits better than it looks in this picture, as the only thing holding it up were two clecos at the top, so it tilted a bit before the photo was taken).........
I then clamped the two pieces together and cleaned the edges thoroughly before welding........
I had to tack it all together first........
Then I welded it up all the way around. I discovered that I had cracked some of the weld on the original piece I built when I used the English wheel to work out some low spots earlier, so I went ahead and rewelded that all the way down while I was at it to insure it wouldn't happen again........
Now that it's all one piece, I needed to knock off the high spots of the welds so that I could then tap out the rises and depressions from the heat transfer when welding. I just used a hammer and dolly for the basic shaping........
And once I got the basic shaping done with the hammer and dolly, I walked back over to the wheel (with a light pinch) to get everything kind of back to a uniform shape......
And sure enough, after sanding the welds down and taking care of some other imperfections with the wheel, it turned out at least somewhat like I was looking for.......
There are going to be two formation lights that go in the end of this fairing, but I'm going to wait on putting them on until after I build the door tracks and doors for this position. I just want to make sure I get everything lined up juuuuuust right and don't want to ruin this piece by cutting the holes for the lights in the wrong spot.
Even though the fabrication of this piece is more or less done, I'm still not completely happy with how it turned out. Sure, it'll work, but if I end up having a little more time as this project moves forward, I may try to make it look a little better. Right now, it looks like someone took an old, junk spinner and made the fairing, rather than stamping it out on a press. I'm wanting the stamped out on a press look.
Gary
While Daniel and the volunteers were knocking out other projects on the airplane during the day, I have pretty much been busy with the clerical end of my job. Paperwork, phone calls, tracking down parts, and so on. Ugh! That's certainly not what I look forward to doing all day. However, that is why I get out here at 3 a.m. nearly every morning, so I can at least try to get some actual work done. So yesterday, I more or less finished up the end cap for the lower portion of the tailgunner's compartment. Here's how it worked out..........
The first thing I had to do was to cut out the remaining portion of that old bashed up spinner and get it back into a basic shape that I could work with. So after cutting it out, I used the hammer and shot bag to bang the large dent out. It kind of makes it look like it went through a West Texas hail storm.........
After that, I just took it over to the English wheel to work out the dents from the hammer. It was important for me to use a light pinch on the dies so that I didn't actually stretch the metal out of shape. My only goal at this point in the process was to smooth it out.........
There, that's good enough for me to get started. There will be more wheeling later.........
The piece was much too large for me to even start with, so I just cut a couple of the corners off with the saw blade on the die grinder. One thing I don't think I've mentioned before is that when using the saw blade or even sanding discs on aluminum (particularly this rather soft aluminum), it is very important to keep it lubricated. I am using Boelube here, but when I run out, I'll probably just go get a bar of soap.........
Just like most of these "first steps" in this project, I had serious doubts that I'd ever be able to actually make it all work out after clamping the piece on for the first time. You can see that you have to use your imagination to even catch a glimpse of what you want the finished product to look like.........
So after trying to work out in my head how I'm gonna make this work, I pressed on. The Sharpie marks you see in this photo (viewed looking inside the fairing) are only there for a general reference. The outer line is obviously a rough sketch of what will be the edge of the material, while the circles in the center tell me the areas that will need to be stretched the most in order for that edge to end up meeting the other peice of the fairing.........
Once the piece is marked, I go to the shot bag and English wheel. There is a lot of back and forth, back and forth during this step. It's much easier to go back and stretch the material more than it is to start over because you've stretched too far.........
You can see how it slowly came into position, as compared to when I first marked it........
Once I was happy with the general fit, I wiped off all of my previous marks and re-marked the edge. I then went over to my Beverly Shear and cut off the excess material. I used this shear vs. the saw blade at this point so that I could have more control over what was cut. This will end up being the final cut before final trimming and welding, so attention to detail here is important........
One last check of the fit before welding it all together (by the way it fits better than it looks in this picture, as the only thing holding it up were two clecos at the top, so it tilted a bit before the photo was taken).........
I then clamped the two pieces together and cleaned the edges thoroughly before welding........
I had to tack it all together first........
Then I welded it up all the way around. I discovered that I had cracked some of the weld on the original piece I built when I used the English wheel to work out some low spots earlier, so I went ahead and rewelded that all the way down while I was at it to insure it wouldn't happen again........
Now that it's all one piece, I needed to knock off the high spots of the welds so that I could then tap out the rises and depressions from the heat transfer when welding. I just used a hammer and dolly for the basic shaping........
And once I got the basic shaping done with the hammer and dolly, I walked back over to the wheel (with a light pinch) to get everything kind of back to a uniform shape......
And sure enough, after sanding the welds down and taking care of some other imperfections with the wheel, it turned out at least somewhat like I was looking for.......
There are going to be two formation lights that go in the end of this fairing, but I'm going to wait on putting them on until after I build the door tracks and doors for this position. I just want to make sure I get everything lined up juuuuuust right and don't want to ruin this piece by cutting the holes for the lights in the wrong spot.
Even though the fabrication of this piece is more or less done, I'm still not completely happy with how it turned out. Sure, it'll work, but if I end up having a little more time as this project moves forward, I may try to make it look a little better. Right now, it looks like someone took an old, junk spinner and made the fairing, rather than stamping it out on a press. I'm wanting the stamped out on a press look.
Gary
Sat Dec 30, 2006 7:31 am
Looks really good to me! Will the formation lights actually work or will they be "dummies"? With the rudders off, is there a way to inspect the interior of the bottoms of the vertical stabilizers for corrosion? It would seem like a good place for water/crud to collect over the years.
Sat Dec 30, 2006 7:37 am
APG85 wrote:Looks really good to me! Will the formation lights actually work or will they be "dummies"? With the rudders off, is there a way to inspect the interior of the bottoms of the vertical stabilizers for corrosion? It would seem like a good place for water/crud to collect over the years.
The lights are real, but will more than likely not be wired in to the airplane, as we don't fly at night and we simply won't have the time for that this year.
It's funny you ask that, as I'm inspecting the airplane today. I have sort of given it a quick look when we opened up all of the panels and had found no big surprises. I will give it a close look today and tomorrow though.
Gary
Tunnel Gun
Sat Dec 30, 2006 11:51 am
Some pictures of a crashed B-24 with the tunnel gun mount, scroll down the bottom of the page
http://www.nps.gov/archive/yuch/Expanded/b24/b24.htm
Someone go get it, seems to be very well preserved, well whats left of it.
Great job you are doing, when do you manage to sleep though?
http://www.nps.gov/archive/yuch/Expanded/b24/b24.htm
Someone go get it, seems to be very well preserved, well whats left of it.
Great job you are doing, when do you manage to sleep though?
great work gary
Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:23 pm
Gary I wasnt trying to knock your efforst with that spinner. Were yo uable to identify what it is from as it looked lancaster?? The link posted previoous is interesting, wonder if there is any chance you guys could get parts from that B24 to help with the work that your doing?
Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:33 pm
yeah. looks like their are some parts inthere that could be recovered. Even small items. Flare rack, rheostat, radio's, tunnel gun parts,...
Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:40 pm
Fortress Fan, thanks for the link. I've seen that before and want to say that one of our former members (now deceased) who lived up in that part of the world tried to do something with that airplane and there was some major hurdle about it. But to be perfectly honest, I don't know what the trouble was. I may look into it myself. Thanks again.
peter, I know the previous spinner comments weren't meant to be bad, I just took 'em that way on what was already a bad day for me. Just unfortunate timing, that's all. And yes, I know what the spinner came off of for sure, but would rather not say, as I don't wish to upset anyone that thinks they may have been able to do something with it. I can say for sure that it was not for a Lanc though.
Gary
peter, I know the previous spinner comments weren't meant to be bad, I just took 'em that way on what was already a bad day for me. Just unfortunate timing, that's all. And yes, I know what the spinner came off of for sure, but would rather not say, as I don't wish to upset anyone that thinks they may have been able to do something with it. I can say for sure that it was not for a Lanc though.
Gary
Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:50 pm
Now what do you think the wire that is taped to the one support tube of the tunnel mount is for? Also if you look closely you can see some writing on the fabric cover the saying tunnel gun / entry door or something to that effect. Also notice the fenolic blocks on top of the mount. Hmmmmmmm.
Scott.......
Scott.......
gun door
Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:53 pm
that would be neat to make a trip and salvage everything you can to make Lil more complete
Sat Dec 30, 2006 1:07 pm
RNDMTRS4EVER,
I'm sorry, but I don't see the cable you're talking about. I do know that this isn't a B-24A, since the tunnel gun is rectangle in shape, vs. oval like ours. I'll probably get corrected on this, but I'm thinking that the wrecked airplane is an "L" model. Not that it matters much, I could surely use many of the items still remaining. I just have two major problems.......time and money.
Gary
I'm sorry, but I don't see the cable you're talking about. I do know that this isn't a B-24A, since the tunnel gun is rectangle in shape, vs. oval like ours. I'll probably get corrected on this, but I'm thinking that the wrecked airplane is an "L" model. Not that it matters much, I could surely use many of the items still remaining. I just have two major problems.......time and money.
Gary