Well, a fair amount of progress took place today, but I'm at a point where I'm having "mechanic's block." I just can't seem to think of the best way to get past some of the hurdles that have jumped in front of me. Well, that's not completely accurate...I have the ideas, I just don't have the desire to do any of them. Started feeling kind of yucky and that's been more on my mind than the work that needs to be done, I reckon. Plus, I started back with the early days again, and I'm still trying to get used to the long hours. But nevertheless, here's today's update...
First of all, one of our older members, Sam Stewart, arrived yesterday and has been wonderful help. I like Sam because he's like me and is deaf as a doorknob. It's great entertainment to hear the two of us talking to one another......well, I
assume it's entertaining to hear that anyway.
Sam's been installing the seatbelts for me. Neils Agather purchased and donated the three sets that are for the Pilot, Copilot, & Flight Engineer seats, while Hooker Harness, Inc. donated the remaining 9 sets of seatbelts for the airplane. This was a very generous donation by both Neils and Hooker, and we very much appreciate it!
I started first thing this morning on trimming the inner skin for the waistgunner's door. This portion of the job was pretty simple, as .020" skin is fairly easy to work with. I started by just cutting the basic shape out (which I had marked yesterday)......
The next step was to clamp it down to the door and get some holes drilled so that the clecos could hold it in place.....
Once that was done, I went ahead and marked the window location and cut it out. Naturally, I deburred and polished up the edges once the cut was complete......
Next, I needed to duplicate the holes in the inner skin to match the previously installed nutplates. I used a hole finder to do this....
It's a simple little tool that you simply put the line up pin in the existing hole, and follow that step by drilling a new hole in the skin by utilizing the drill guide........
Then it was just a matter of putting the screws in to insure everything lined up right...which it did........
Now, one thing I neglected to do while making all of the angles for the structure of the door, was to make the corners. I can't explain why I left this step out, but I don't reckon it really matters. I did, however, need to go ahead and knock them out now. I just shrunk the angles, as shown in previous posts, and riveted each one into place.......
Once I got that out of the way, I went back to marking and trimming the inner skin to fit a bit better......
Then it was time to place the door in the airplane. Good ol' duct tape was the holder-upper for the time being.........
In order to keep from having to always use duct tape to hold the door on, I decided to make a set of hinges for it to swing on. Every B-24 model after the "A" model had a lower waistgunner's position, in which the door hinged from the top. Ours, however, hinged from the bottom, so that's what I'm going to try to duplicate. I just started with some really hard aluminum angles and started making the shapes needed to get this done........
In order to cut the curve out that I need for this particular hinge, I decided to use the "step drill" process. It's just a quick way to get the bulk of the material out of the way and is followed by refining the curve with a die grinder with a rotary file installed........
Then it was time to make the bottom hinge. Notice how I place the "x" on the piece that needs to be removed. This keeps dummies like me from cutting out the wrong portion.........
That all looked well and good all clecoed in place, but it wasn't until I had opened the door that I realized that I'd left a portion of the hinge material in place that needed to be removed. It kept the door from coming all the way open.......
And here it is with the faulty section removed.......
I had reinstalled that piece and it worked well, so I needed to start duplicating the hinges. The only thing was that the bottom hinge just needed to be a mirror image. No biggie, and this went fairly quickly..........
Now that both hinges were on (albeit temporarily), I could take the duct tape holder-uppers off and see how well the door swung. Well, it swung just fine, but there was a definite problem. The door hits the gun mount when in the down position. This really sucks. Not just because it's more work, but because Don Obreiter did a fantabulous (yes, it's a made up word) job in making the mount, and now I have to modify it. It just barely hits, so it shouldn't end up being a whole redesigning issue, just a modification. But either way, it's just the way things worked out and I'll have to deal with it..........
Before I mess around with the gun mount modifications, I still need to figure out a latching mechanism for the door. I'd love to put a latch on there like the tunnel gun has, but I'm afraid I've robbed that source for parts clean. I spent an hour scrounging around this place to find something that will work and didn't come up with anything......until I stumbled across the remnants of the rotten-*ss entry door that was on Diamond Lil (remember that clunky ol' airplane?). Well, I think I can use some of that mechanism that is in that rotted out structure, so that'll be my project for first thing in the morning..........
So I'm going to go home now and lose sleep all night, trying to figure out how the heck I'm going to get this airplane flying in three weeks (our lovely deadline is approaching). I'll holler at y'all later.
Gary
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You are the master of masters Gary. You hold my deepest respect. 
