Okay, I'd like to apologize for the lengthy delay in getting y'all a photo update, but I'm finally getting to it now, so please stop sending the threatening e-mails.
The last few days have been a zoo around here. We had the CAF Winter Staff Conference from Friday until Sunday, the Daytona 500 event on Sunday (that kept us from working half the day), and another little event today for the 50th anniversary of the CAF that shut us down for an hour or so today. So now that all of that stuff is all over with, maybe we can get something accomplished for a few days.
With everything going on, and for other various reasons, I ended up jumping from one project to the next. So, what I thought I'd do on this update is explain each photo in the order of which I took them. This will show how unorganized I tend to get (bad trait of mine, I know) and perhaps display a little of why I tend to get so wound around the axle and stressed out sometimes.
Late last week, I started modifying the pogo assembly (that keeps the airplane from falling on it's tail when loading the airplane) so that it'll be double acting, so to speak. More on that a little later........
However, what started out to be a simple removal of the pogo for these mods, ended up being an entire rebuild of the pogo system. The retract unit was supposedly repaired recently, but was leaking fluid and had some severely bent and worn parts. I'm not sure if it was simply out of adjustment or what, but it had definitely started trashing itself. Just what I needed...another project and another setback.
.........
So, before I can move forward with resealing the actuator for the pogo, I'll have to have it machined to fix the attach points. VERY frustrating to find items like this.
In order to keep from getting too worked up about the junk I discovered in the pogo assembly, I decided to move on to another project that's been bouncing around in my head and depriving me of sleep.
With the waist gunner's floors now raised to their correct positions (well, the bulkheads in place anyway), I was going to need a set of steps to lead folks from that floor, down to the bottom floor, which goes through the bomb bays and up to the cockpit. With the time constraints, I was desperate to find something that I could modify, rather than having to build something from scratch. I finally found what I was looking for. It was the old entry steps that used to be attached to the side of the airplane when the old transport door was opened. I placed it in the spot I needed to see what kind of modifying was necessary.......
The steps were obviously much too long, so I happily cut them to the length I needed......
I then located and drilled holes in the bulkhead for the guide pins and attach points........
One thing I noticed was that the steps were built crooked. I'm sure this was intentional, since they were built for the angle of the old door's entry area........
To remedy this, I needed to cut about an inch of material out and reattach it.......
After cleaning the old paint off of the ends of the tubing so that it'll weld nicely, I ran into a little bit of a hurdle by not being able to hold the two pieces together. Andy was busy with another project and I didn't want to slow him down. Sooooo, I just got the ol' ratchet strap out and let it do the work for me........
After welding the two ends of the tube up, the steps were nice and level. I needed to come up with some "feet" for the steps though, so that the steel ends wouldn't eventually eat through the aluminum structure. So I made some on the lathe, out of some nylon (or something similar) that we had laying around and put them in the bottom of the tubes.....
I bolted the steps in place and although they're not the prettiest things in the world, they actually work fairly well......
When walking back to my office to get my "WIX fix," I snapped a picture of Andy working on getting our fuel tanks sealed up.......
People from all over the place started converging on the office area in the hangar, so I made a daring escape out the side door and started working on the floorboards for the airplane. The first area I'll be messing with here is the waist gunner's floors.
Now, of course, what would normally be a fairly simple process, is actually more complicated than it seems. When doing all of these mods during this reconfiguration, I had to keep in mind that we have to haul all of our garage sale junk around. There was much concern about me removing those lovely old cargo bins out of the airplane, so I have made sure that we'll have a place to store items throughout the airplane, albeit not as many items.
So, with that being said, I needed to make the waist gunner's floors where they can be lifted up to gain access to the storage areas beneath them, while at the same time, looking somewhat like they're supposed to in a B-24A. I decided to make the forward storage section of the waist gunner's floor in three pieces. One permanent piece in the center and two outer doors. The first piece to be built is the center one, and I started by simply making a measurement and getting the ol' cutting wheel out (the blue stuff on the skin is just a removable protective coating).....
I'm happy to have been given the heads up to the manufacturer for this corrugated skin (thanks WIXers!
), but it's just not quite as strong as the original Consolidated stuff. So a lot of extra "beefing up" will be required for most of the floors I'll have to build. I am utilizing some stringer material that we originally had made for FIFI's airframe issues that was now surplus to our needs....
This is the first time I've done any work with corrugated material. It's not all that bad...just different. The rivet holes must obviously all be drilled in the low spots of the corrugations, and riveting sometimes becomes a challenge if the hole isn't drilled in the exact center.......
One thing you've gotta be careful of when dealing with this corrugated stuff is the sharp corners. You don't ever really want sharp corners on sheet metal projects, but it's particularly bad with this stuff. Soooooo.....
Sharp corner bad.....
Rounded corner good
.....
After clecoing this section of floor to it's intended position, I quickly realized that I hadn't installed near enough support to it.....
So, I built four new angles, attached them on the edges of the floor, and tried that........
Note: I still wasn't satisfied with the strength of the floor, so I ended up fabricating some other little bracketry under the floor, but didn't take pictures of the process. But trust me, it's "Fat Boy approved" now.
Once I got the center portion of the floor the way I wanted it, I thought I'd get back on my pogo modification project. I started to get bombarded with phone calls, so I had Andy start on the project for me. He cut off the old end of the pogo, which left a 1.5" (inner diameter) hollow tube. He then cut a piece of 1.5" solid stock. I shaved about .040" off of the solid stock on the lathe so that it would easily slide inside the old pogo tube. It's possible that you can see where I'm eventually going with this modification.....
It was about at this point where my day got pretty non productive. I had people coming in from all directions asking me about the airplane, what I'm doing to it, and why (they obviously don't tune in to the WIX channel, do they?
). I don't really mind answering questions for folks. It's nice to know that they are interested in what we're doing. I had plenty of folks offer to help too. Even some Squadron members. I even took a picture of them. Here they are "helping" me.......
Okay, okay, I'm sure I'll get some nasty-grams over that photo
, but we actually did have a fair amount of
real helpers the last few days. Here are a few of them in action.........
That Andy is all over the place, isn't he?........
While all of this was going on, my Maintenance Officer, Don Obreiter, fabricated the new floor for the bombardier's section........
I also worked with Don on the remaining modifications to the pogo (translation: I had him do all of the work). The pogo is now adjustable. It will be collapsed completely before it is retracted (this will be a new checklist item). The plan is, just prior to engine shut down, the pilot will lower the pogo from a switch on the instrument panel. The loadmaster (or ground crew) will remove the pip pin from the pogo and lower the center portion of it until it is just above the ground, and then reinstall the pin in a pre-drilled hole. This will eliminate the step of having to go to the back of the airplane, unstrapping the old tail stand, and installing it to the old tail skid. It may end up being another one of my stupid ideas, but for now, it seems like it'll work fairly well.........
Have I mentioned that our crew of volunteers has been getting some sanding done? (And they're even staying off of the rivet heads like I asked 'em) They are really doing great work with a really crappy job assignment!.........
Amongst other little projects, I managed to get back to work on my floorboards. I can't remember which day this was, but I know I didn't take any pictures of the process for this second piece. It was basically like the first one, with the exception that I added a piano hinge to one end. One thing that's neat about this corrugated stuff is that it's inherently strong. I made sure that I had two of the corrugations overlap the first piece that was installed. This made for a very strong overlap. The idea is also to hide this door. We don't really want people to know that we've hidden things under the floors, we want 'em to think it's just all one piece...so don't go tellin' anyone.
........
Rather than build the third piece of that forward section of waist gunner's floor, I got to thinking that I should probably get the portions of floor that are close to the entry way done next. You can see in previous pictures that we'd just clamped pieces of wood (old floorboard material) to the structure. Not exactly Fat Boy approved.
Right away, I ran into an obstacle with the section of floor right at the entry way. It is at an angle, which will make it difficult to hinge the way I have in mind. It could also use a bit more support there since it's such a high traffic area. So I just got some more of that surplus stringer material out and started building a new piece of structure.......
The first cut is along the bottom.....
Then I had to cut the top sections.......
Smoothin' the edges and roundin' the corners........
After measuring the distance from the other piece of structure, I drilled and clecoed the new piece in place.......
Then countersunk the holes.........
And finally, riveted the new piece into place.......
Lately, I've had this persistant sound repeating itself in my head (and no, it's not those voices again). It sounds like pnuematic, orbital sanders. Man, those guys are workin' their tails off.........
One interesting little thing that Don Obreiter brought to my attention was this little bracket in the nose of the airplane. If you recall in one of my previous posts, there is a photo of what's painted on the floor of the cockpit section of this airplane. In the photo, it reads, "RY3-38." This little bracket, however, clearly says, "RY3-37." This isn't "Twilight Zone" strange, but it's at least interesting nonetheless...........
Oh, and there's Andy again.........
Heck, we even have Jase (fellow WIXer) here helping, along with his wife. Man, you just gotta love pretty women with low standards!
.......
Well, in between more phone calls and giving tours through the B-29 today, I only did a small amount of work to the next piece of floorboard....
And that's all I have for now. Even though I didn't really do much work today, I'm on my 16th hour here and I'm about ready to look at something different for a few hours (the insides of my eyelids would be nice for a change
). Anyway, I hope this get's your update withdrawals under control for a little while. I hope to be more punctual with the next one.
As always, questions and comments welcome.
Gary
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