Warbird Information Exchange

.............Do your own danged secretarial work...........You go girl!


I Don't Want Nobody To Give Me Nothing (Open Up The Door, I'll Get It Myself

He'll probably do that once you perfect your sheet metal fabrication skills!

Gary, have you ever tried a nibbler instead of the band saw you use to cut curved shapes in sheet metal? Might save some time.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=46061

The go on sale at Harbor Freight on occasion for about $20.

BDK, it's funny you mention that. Just the other day I was going through my toolbox (the one for my sheet metal tools) and saw my air nibbler there. I had completely forgotten I even had it. Heck, I probably even moved it out of my way when looking for other tools recently.

I agree that it does make life easier many times, and I will surely use it in the future. Sometimes I just can't see the forest for the trees.

Gary

Now, BDK, I never claimed to have any sheet metal fab skills. Of course, I never claimed to have any secretarial skills, either!

Gary, keep up the great work!

A band saw is a much better tool to use than a nibbler. To much clean up work with a nibbler. A nibbler only comes in it's own when you have to make a irergular hole in some metal where a band saw blade or a hole saw won't go. Anyway I wouldn't have any Harbor Freight tools in my tool box! I handle that stuff like a dead rat. Harbor freight tools.. Tools built by amateurs for amateurs

Have you ever had one of those days where you start off doing everything wrong, which initially makes you mad, but as you keep screwing up, you can't do much but laugh at yourself like an idiot? No? Well, that's how today has gone for me so far.

I think I'm approaching burnout, but I don't want to admit it. So yesterday, I took a little time to step away from the airplane to mess with another little project of mine. The thought was that I would come in today with my mind all clear and ready to get back to work. Apparently I was wrong. I've been making silly mistakes from the time I stepped in the door this morning. Some of them made me laugh at myself, but others did not. Here's some of what has been done today......

The first little project for me was to get Daniel (who came in shortly after I did this morning) to figure out how to fix my screw up on the tailgunner's upper section so that the tracks for the doors would line up properly. You see, I somehow ended up building that top piece crooked. I know I measured, and remeasured, and measured again when I built that thing, but it's crooked as a dog's hind leg. Daniel has figured out how to fix it (I just had to walk away from it since it made me so mad), and is finishing it up now. Here he is taking the clecos out to start working on it.....



This shot shows Daniel in a slightly frustrated pose (he didn't know I was taking the picture), while working out how to fix my screw up. However, he definitely knows how valuable he is to this project and that I appreciate him coming in to work with us........



In the meantime, I got started back on those handrail supports that my most recent update showed the beginnings of. I started by making little inserts to hold the two curved pieces apart. They were made from the same square material and would be simply welded together.......



I then placed each insert into position, one at a time, and clamped the whole thing together with the vice-grip clamps.......



Then I took them over to the warehouse (where the welder is) and welded each little piece on. Do you know how hard it is to take a picture of yourself welding? Man, the things I'll do to make these posts interesting. .............



Now, the following screw up just made me laugh. I had finished trying to weld and take pictures at the same time, and believe it or not, was actually quite focused on the project at hand. However, this was one of those times where you should follow your first thoughts, rather than what your brain talks you in to. You see, I was welding two pieces together, but noticed it just didn't look quite right. Then it even smelled a little different, but I convinced myself that I must've just gotten some dirt on the part and it was burning off. Well, what was actually burning off was the plating on the vice grip clamps that I had just welded to my part! ........



So after cutting the vice grips off , I got back to work on the project. After both end pieces were welded in place, I put the center insert in, clamped it, and welded it in place.....





Somewhere along the line, while I was welding, I noticed that my hand was getting really hot. When I lifted up my welding hood, I noticed that my right hand was on fire! A couple of quick raps on the table easily put it out, but it was a dumb mistake. It sucks that I've ruined yet another pair of gloves (just bought these last week), but this is also another great example of why I wear them to begin with. My hand is fine, without even so much as a red spot.......



So anyway, that is when I decided to stop for the day. I'll probably hang out here for a little while more (I have a few pictures I want to post on some other threads here on WIX), and then I may go and play with Mark's PBY at my house for a little while. Who knows. But I'll be back tomorrow morning.....same time, same channel. If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.

Gary

For somebody that was going to leave early today, it's not surprising that I'm still here working. I ended up walking away from the airplane for a little bit, but John needed my help in getting the propellers ready for removal (we have to get the prop A.D. done on all of them), and we've got one of the CAF C-45's coming in for rotation and I have to put it in the hangar later, and we had a volunteer come in to help us out and I needed to give him a job assignment.

What's interesting about this particular volunteer (James West) isn't the fact that he drove here from Lamesa, TX (I have no idea where that is) to get here, or the fact that he works 80 hours a week typically, but still insisted on coming out to help. What is interesting about him, however, is that his grandfather worked at the Consolidated Aircraft factory in San Diego, in 1940, and helped build AM927! James said that his grandfather is the reason he got interested in airplanes as a kid, the reason that he now has his A&P and I.A. (aircraft mechanic's licenses), and is the reason that he's here today helping us.

His grandfather's name is J.T. Frizzell. It used to be J.A., but the "A" stood for Adolf, and he had his middle name changed once that fellow from Germany with the same name started doing nasty things to people. We just spoke to J.T., via telephone (and via his wife so that she could yell our questions to him), and we asked him about what he did on AM927. He said that, among many other things, he helped with the conversion of this airplane from bomber to transport and was one of the guys that installed the new belly on the airplane. When asked if he had any pictures of this, he said that there were two or three folks that took pictures while he and his crew were working, and one of them ended up in LIFE magazine. He remembered sending a copy to his wife back home, but hasn't seen it in many years.

I asked James to bring his grandfather out to see the airplane, but sadly, his health won't permit it. He lives in Star City, Arkansas (which is about 60 miles away from Little Rock), and I'm going to try my hardest to see if we can make sure that we make a special stop in Little Rock this season so that ol' J.T. can get on board this airplane again! I'll be sure to keep y'all posted.

Here's James working on his grandfather's airplane........


Gary

Lamesa is about 45 miles north of here off of 349 headed toward Lubbock. He might have just blown in with the north wind like all of the dirt does.

OK, so I was curious what a nibbler was and googled it and came up with these. I'm not sure whether to be puzzled, amused or alarmed.
Over to you Gary.

_________________
Don't touch my junk!!

A nibbler is when you have been floating around for a couple of hours, the sun is gertting up in the sky, you are down to your last cold RC cola, and you haven't caught supper yet, despite seeing the cork bob a few times.

_________________
Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Here's another possibilty

_________________
Don't touch my junk!!

LOL!

Jack, I vote for choice #2.

This is a link to a manual sheet metal nibbler (in case you'd rather see that than choice #2 in the previous post)....... http://www.ehobbytools.com/index.html?t ... lang=en-us

Gary

First one's kind of cute, I wouldn't want to get caught with my finger in the second one though... Oops! I meant "get my finger caught in the second one" of course.

#2 gets my vote... Brandon, past history with stuck fingers??????

OK, Gary what is the latest in "Austinizing" for the Lil, props off? How about props 101, how to take'em off, what to look for in the feathering gear, splines, hubs, bolts, oil passages, governors, etc....... Oh, and do we need to ship ya' a couple boxes of gloves? Alan

_________________
Just call me Al.

Hmmm, I may have screwed up on that one. Forgot all about taking pictures of the removal of the prop guts.

It's easy enough to stick that stuff back together though. I may reassemble one of them before we pull them off the airplane tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Gary