Warbird Information Exchange

How about extending the floor stringers,
a half circumferential where the double row goes,
a half circumferential right down the center of the tail fairing tieing into the circumferential mentioned with the double row and into the peice your fabricating above. the a 1/4 circumferential on the tail cone tieing into this
Just looking at the rivet paterns in the comsolidated pictures thats what I see

Let's see if I can answer a few of your questions here........

warbirdcrew & Broken-Wrench, yes, there is indeed more structure that goes in the tailcone of the airplane. There is some bracketry for the gun mount and for some armor plate (which doubles as a foot rest). I needed to get the tracks built for the doors first though, since the gun mount stuff attaches under the tracks. I'm sure that I'll be building other structure as needed, but sometimes baby steps works best. This is an excellent example of why I've been trying to get any interior photos of the tailgunner's section. Just one picture could unlock many answers for me.

Right now, this is the only picture I have regarding what the inside looked like. You can see that there is a lot left to the imagination for this project. (Oh, and the "twin .50 caliber tail gun" reference was for the aircraft depicted in this drawing only...ship #7. The remaining "A" models only had a single .50 as far as we can tell, so that's what we're putting in it).........



T-6G Pilot, yes, we will be repriming the inside of the control surfaces before covering them. There is really no need to put a coat of paint on them as well, since it would just be more weight and expense. But there should be plenty of moisture/corrosion protection for the metal. I'll try to remember to post updates of that process as it moves forward.

Bill Greenwood, it definitely takes a fair amount of time to do these updates and answer questions, but I don't mind at all. It kind of gives me something to look at besides a big, ugly airplane for a change. Sometimes the questions are a little tough, but I try to answer them the best I know how. I hope I don't come across to anyone on this thread to seem as if I know everything about these airplanes, because I don't. I learn how little I actually know about what I'm doing every day I'm out here. Hopefully I'll be able to someday put myself in the same class as Nelson Ezell, Gerry Beck, and others, but until then, I'll just keep trying. When folks ask me questions on this thread, it helps me along as well, so keep 'em coming!

Oh, and the cat hasn't faired to well against rattlesnakes. He's been bitten twice, but the up side is that he's really starting to build his immune system to them. I came in to the hangar this past summer and his head was the size and shape of a soft ball. He had two little tiny fang marks on his nose. It was a pretty pathetic sight, but kind of funny now that he's okay. I had a picture of it, but can't find it now.

Anyway, if y'all have any other questions or comments, shoot 'em to me. I'll be checking back in after I get some more work done.

Gary

Not to be picky, but you could put a single 30 cal in the tail and still be correct. Seems like the A models were almost custom built one at a time and they used whatever was handy. Good thing they learned to streamline prodution, or maybe Consoldated never did and left that up to Ford.

True, but I we now have five .50 cals to put in the airplane, thanks to the WIX guys and gals. I think that's what we'll stick with. The Ferry Command B-24A's had a single .50 in the tail, which is what we're going to go with. But you are right, they did put several different combinations of guns back there.

Gary

Don't know what they did back in the day on the B-24, but...

Modern epoxy primers simplify this a lot since they are impervious to the solvents used in the fabric covering process and are great corrosion barriers. They also don't react with existing coatings on the framework and act like a sealer. Steel tube fuselages and steel tube type control surfaces used to be wrapped with cotton tape to provide a bonding surface since the finishes of the time would disbond from the solvents in the dope.

The spray bomb zinc chromate that Gary applied on the outside of the doubler where it is in contact with the fabric would likely disbond or dissolve if dope was applied to it and would not be a good corrosion barrier. The coating inside the doubler would be OK.

Control surfaces are vented with drain holes to allow condensate to escape, so there is an expectation that there will be moisture inside the control surface.

Hence the reason we're going to be priming the inside of the surfaces with a good, epoxy primer.

Gary

Forgive me if I missed it.
But wasn't Scot archiving this tread somewhere?
I was going to post alink to it but I cannot see it!

Great work by the way Gary, looking good!
Alan.

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I never doubted that for a moment! Please excuse my technical dissertation if it seemed to suggest otherwise. I never was much of a "people person"!

Enginers Never do! Do they? You know, I have noticed that if you work with a pilot and a Enginer at the same time you have a Phoenix Syndrome. Anyway, I tell the pilot the only way to get your point across with Enginers is with data!

Gary maybe you should start charging people 50 bucks a question,100 bucks for stupid ones. Then the 24 & 29 would be flying in no time.
I'm just kidding of course but I hope this isn't one more way people take advantage of us "grease monkeys"
It's a thin line between being ones friend and ones fool.
Keep up the good work.

You kiddin' me? The questions and suggestions don't bother me........well, most of the time.

BDK, I know you weren't saying anything negative, I appreciate your "technical dissertation" to help explain the reasoning behind some of these little projects I post.

Sometimes, I don't get all of the things said in a post that are needed to answer everyone's questions. Posting these updates isn't always easy for me since I don't always know what I'm doing either.

On that note, I'm going to get back after it. I'll try to have a little update for y'all later.

Gary

In the last update, I was in the middle of making the tracks (or rails) for the tailgunner's doors. It is from that point where I'll continue........

Now that the first rail had been made, I needed to make duplicates. All of this actually went a little smoother than I had originally thought it would. Just by taking one little step at a time (on the shrinker & stretcher), I was able to get all four pieces pretty much the same. The only tricky part was to make sure that I mirror imaged the top rails with the bottom ones, since they are installed upside down.

Once again, I forgot to take as many pictures as I probably should have, but we'll just have to use our imaginations here. I sheared the remaining three pieces of aluminum I needed and bent them 90 degrees on the sheet metal brake to make the angles. Then I started the duplication process.......



It took shrinking of the metal to get this shape.......



And stretching of the metal to get this shape.......



And then back to the shrinker to finish it off......



Once the pieces were fabricated, I then had to clamp them all in place to make sure the met in the middle. After a little adjustment here and there, they all lined up........





After insuring they fit properly, I welded the two halves of each rail together. This material is 6061-O, which welds up nicely. After welding, I sanded and polished up the excess weld in order to make the tracks nice and smooth for the doors to slide on. There will be more precise polishing later......



The next step was to make mounting tabs for the rails to attach to. I just used some bulb angle for this step. The center attach point needed to have the most support, so I took two pieces of the bulb angle and riveted them back to back.....





And for those of you who don't quite get the concept of how a rivet actually works, here's a very abbreviated slide show regarding that.......

The first thing you look for is the proper length of the rivet. The rule of thumb for the desired length is 1.5 times the diameter of the hole. This one looks about right for this application........


Then, with the proper rivet set and range of travel set up in the squeezer, it's pretty straight forward from here. Just squeeze until the rivet is smashed to the correct dimension. Again, the rule of thumb here is that the tail of the smashed rivet should be 1.5 times the diameter.......





So here's the riveted peice, with the tail side first, then the heads.......





Now that this first attach tab is built, I just riveted it into place and clecoed the rail to it.......





The rest of the tabs were all just single pieces, since the added strength wasn't necessary for them. I neglected to take photos of that process, but it was pretty straight forward..........





Now with the bottom rail having it's attach bracketry made, it's time to move to the upper rail. Same song, different verse..........

Gary

Thanks for the update. The rails are looking good.

I appreciated the Cleco update, I've seen them in pictures for years, but never had a clue as to how they worked.

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Gary,

Just curious. In the grainy b&w photo you posted that you are working from on the tracks, it appears the track is a [ channel more than just an L channel. Am I seeing things or did you come up with a better way to run the doors on the L-channel you are installing??

You're right. The original is a "U" channel, however, I have a method floating in my head to possibly make this angle work well, with less construction time. I just need to get these tracks mounted first, before I can try my idea out. If this idea of mine does not work out, then I can simply weld the other side to the angle I now have to make it a "U". The problem is that the rollers that fit on the doors for the "U" channel are rather complex, and frankly, I don't know if I have the ability and know how to build them (not to mention the drawings with the exact dimensions). I do have a drawing of the rollers, but it's marginal at best. Basically, it's only good enough to scare me. But, like I said, I'll try my idea first and if it works out, then I'll be ahead of the game. If not, then I'll have to rethink this a little and try to figure out how to build those factory style rollers.

Gary