Warbird Information Exchange

Are you kidding me?!? I'm needing help every stinkin' day I work on these ol' jalopies. I can assure you that there's plenty of work now and will be plenty of work after the first of the year. Come on down. If it's work you want, we'll sure find some for you.

Gary

Making this lower section of the tailgunner's section has been challenging to say the least. It may just be that I'm having a bad couple of days, or it may just be that it's out-smarting me. Either way, the scrap pile and hours of wasted time are accumulating. I didn't take as many pictures of the process as I probably should have, but here's what got done today...

The first thing I did was to make a little brace to hold the aft portion of the lower bow at the same height as the front of the bow. Then I made a "buck" out of wood to simulate the shape that I will be needing to make the aluminum skin into later...


This is pretty much how it all starts. A buck as a pattern and a flat sheet of aluminum. Since this will obviously have a compound curve, I am using 2024-0 aluminum. It is still in it's "soft" form which makes it able to be worked with the shrinker and English wheel better...


I've forgotten how many pieces I scrapped out before I got to this point. My mind just isn't clear enough for this kind of work today I reckon. But here is the first two pieces of the puzzle...


After getting frustrated with how poorly I was doing with that skin today, I went ahead and fabricated the lower bow support angle. It is made up of a bulb angle and two straight alumunim angles riveted to one another. This pretty much duplicates the factory setup on the old tail section, only with the different shape to accomodate the gun. This was kind of a fun piece to build. I wish I had thought to take pictures of it as I went...


And here's the previously mentioned bow support clecoed into place. You can at least see the general direction that I'm going here. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get my mind in the game and be more productive...


Gary

Regarding the earlier questions about the Cockpit canopy:



Does anyone know if the "typical B-24" canopy from a B-24L will fit on to a B-24A??

http://www.sos.state.mi.us/history/museum/explore/museums/hismus/1900-75/arsenal/index.html

I was thinking. The folks at the Michigan Historical Museum have a B-24L forward fuselage hung on their wall.



Perhaps they might consider a trade for "Diamond Lil's" old canopy?

Shay
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Semper Fortis

Gary,

What is the feature for that that has the missing horizontal strip of sheet metal through the word "Consolidated"?

My apologies for the awkward sentence!

Sorry Gary for not making it, car broke down Fri eve and I could not get it fixed till Sat afternoon. I will come out some weekend soon though Houston is starting to suck heh.

BDK, those areas that you are talking about are the factory original tracks for the tail gunner's doors. They slid back (or actually "aircraft forward") to give the tail gunner an open area to shoot out of. There should be a photo of the original setup in one of the earlier posts in this thread that will help show you what I'm talking about. It has been pretty cool uncovering these sort of items on this airplane. I also have found that the original bomb door tracks are still in place.....at least the rear ones anyway. There is no doubt that this airplane was once a bomber.

Nathan, no big deal. I was having a bad weekend anyway. Probably worked out that I didn't have any help. Was a little on the grumpy side. I'll look forward to you and anyone else coming out to help whenever you can.

Gary

Corrugated floorboard....

Just a possibility.

A few years ago, I was visiting the San Diego Aerospace museum restoration shop.

They where working on their Tri-Motor.

I remember asking one of the sheet metal tech where they where getting all the aluminium for the skins.

He answered that they had found the original supplier still had all the dies ( Spelling ?) for pressing the required skins sheet + they had a bunch of other types of corrugated patterns available.

Just my 2 cents.

http://www.aerospacemuseum.org/exhibits/aircraft_feb.html

Greg Herrick, owner of the Golden Wings Museum, in Anoka COunty-Baline airport, near Minneapolis, had a Tri-motor being rebuilt and another already flying, which corrugated skin is brand new. He is a good friend, I can put you in touch with him.

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Paris, FRANCE

Thank you Michael and Happymeal for that info!!! I will get in touch with the SanDiego folks and I would also like to have that other info as well. Please PM me with it at your convenience.

Gary

That is quite interesting!



Consolidated seemed to have a great liking for articulated doors and tracks (like the bomb bay doors).

What are the two circular items in the door, and for that matter the two circular items below?

The two items in the door are sort of a mystery to me. I originally thought they were for either a single gun or the twin guns to protrude from, but that doesn't make much sense to me. The guns are all mounted on the inside of the airplane when not in use. And the twin guns were also mounted side by side, not in that vertical arrangement. I'm just stumped on that one.

The two "circular objects" just below the doors are the formation lights for when on a bomb run. The one light is white, which the lead bombardier would illuminate to indicate to the other bombers behind that they are on the bomb run. The second light is a red one which illuminates when it's "bombs away" time.

Gary

That's pretty neat!

Gary, My understanding on the two holes between the doors were for the twin 50's. The would rotate 90 degrees out of the way so you could close the doors. The guns would only be stored when they were over safe territory or parked on the ramp.
One very neat item still in Lil is the gunners seat rail. the piece of silver metal above the small windows on the sides. the gunner would sit in a swing type seat suspended from this rail. Not very stable. Remember this was designed prior to the war so they found many of these gunners arangements not very practicle.

Here are a couple of pictures to show what Steve just described with the tail gunner's seating arrangement. First is the factory drawing of it, then the adjustment bar.
Gary

Are those drawings for the A Model tail gun? From what research I have done the B-24A had 30s in the tail. Not to be anal, but the thread about what guns were in a F8F got me to looking.