Warbird Information Exchange

I made it out to the CAF this afternoon with some family that was in town for the holidays. Man, they are really getting after it now. The nose is off, windows stripped out, cowlings and control surfaces are off, and it looked like they were pulling out most of the remaining interior. Hopefully work will slow down a little and I will be able to get out there and help some in the near future.

And you didn't stop by to introduce yourself and say hello??? What, were you afraid I'd put you to work?

Gary

No in fact as tired as I am of some of the family right now, that would have been a good thing. I would have introduced myself, but I never saw you. I saw three or four other guys working, but I didn't want to interrupt them just to track you down. I am hoping to have next Sunday free after I get back form Denver. If I do, I'll give you a call.

I don't know if all of the planets were lined up today or what, but the helpers not only came out one after the other, I also actually had our Squadron Leader and a CAF General Staff member helping on the B-24! Old Shep even has a battle injury from working on this ol' pig, so his initiation worked out well.

As I mentioned, I had plenty of helpers today. It was wonderful to see folks out here having what seemed to be a good time and also getting large amounts of work accomplished. They got all of the cowl flaps removed (so that I can "overhaul" all of the bushings), removed more interior bits, and started taking the upper nosebowls off. I bet they saved me three days of work if I had to do what they did by myself. Thanks guys!

As for me, I feel as though I actually made some forward progress today as well. I started working on those door hinges that were pictured on this thread yesterday, but scrapped the idea after a while. I know, I know, I jump around with ideas on this project like a centipede walking across hot coals, but sometimes my ideas are good and sometimes they're bad. That set of hinges I made wasn't one of my better ideas thus far.

Sooooo, I started on Plan B with the entry door. The steps to this are pictured below...

Anyone that has seen our B-24 has seen that big ol' transport door that's on the left side. Well, with time and money restraints, I'm sort of forced to utilize the framework in the fuselage that Consolidated put there for the door, but I'm trying to make this thing look like something other than a trash hauler. So the first thing for me to do was to take the door off and start cuttin'......


Here's the two halves, looking at the inside of the door (I already drilled the interior skins out at this point)...

The lower half.......


Once I had the two halves apart, I noticed that the lower portion of the door was rotten with corrosion. This is the first corrosion I've come across on the airplane so far. But this discovery wasn't the end of the world, as I had no intentions of using this lower portion anyway. All I needed was to utilize some of the structural pieces (the ones that were still good anyway) to build a fixed piece of skin that will be riveted to the fuselage. There'll be a picture of it later that might explain better. For now, here is the lower half of the door that was rotten (by the way, there was no way for previous inspections to find this without removing the skins like I did)...

A closer look...


The next step was to take the old skin and transfer some rivet holes to the new piece of aluminum. I had to increase the dimension of the new piece in order to pick up rivets on the outside of the door frame...


There were four structurally sound bulkheads remaining in the lower portion of the door. This worked out well, since the ones that were good were the ones I needed for this modification. It's better to be lucky than good. The area in the middle will have a door installed in it for access to the little storage area that'll be under the new waistgunner's floors.......



And here it is clecoed to the fuselage. I still have a fair amount of trimming to do, along with back drilling the remaining rivet holes, but I'm pooped and will probably finish that up tomorrow....


Gary

I wish I was there! Making custom ribs is all I did at the lazy U. Do you have acess to a hydroform or Heat treating oven? What are you going to do about that patch fwd of the old door frame? I can't see very good in the picture.

Well, I think I've proven to one and all why CAF General Staff members should avoid working on the airplanes....not that I failed to accomplish some small amount of good for Gary and Lil, but the slash I received across the back doing so (which, fortunately, will not require hospitalization, nor was it serious enough to garner any sympathy from my wifeor anybody else) proved to me that my old body just doesn't bend like it used to.

Actually, I enjoyed doing something to help out, and I intend to do that again. Please guys, if you close to Midland, or can get out this way, give Gary a hand. He is truly doing a remarkable job on Lil...

I will be helping make Gary's Twin Tail Fly-in a bigger deal here at CAF HQ...Something I can do....Stay tuned for more news of that event early next year...

And Midland isn't at the end of the world...three major airlines fly in here,,,but we are centrally located where miles and miles of West Texas provide the majority of the scenary!

Old Shep

No sir, no hydroform or heat treating ovens here. I'm doing good just to have a decent sheet metal brake, much less all of the fancy stuff that you're talking about. I could go on and on with how nice it would be to have better equipment here (and usually do), but we'll get by with what we've got for now. Don't have much choice really. Maybe you could still come out and teach me a few things about forming custom ribs like you used to do. I need all the learnin' I can get.

That "patch" fwd of the old door frame is actually not a patch at all. I know it's difficult to tell from the photo, but it's where the fairing went that was for those big, ugly door hinges (you can still see the top one in place). That area will simply be stripped, along with the rest of the airplane, and won't even be noticed when this project is completed.

On that note, it's time to get back to work. I'll update y'all again a little later.

Gary

Here's something I thought y'all might find interesting. I have just tallied up the time I've worked on the Liberator since this project started (officially on Oct. 31...the same day this thread started). Since I don't get paid by the hour, I didn't "worry" about how much time I spent when we were doing FIFI's major repairs, and now I regret it. But for this project, I'm doing a better job at it. I'm just filling out timesheets everyday and since yesterday's entry completed my fourth week on the job (the first week was only a partial week, with 5 days), I thought I'd relay the totals to you.

So as of Saturday, November 25, the total amount of time I've personally worked on the project is 317.5 hours. Now of course, this doesn't mean every second of that was directly on the B-24, but I would say an easy 90-95% of it was. Volunteer time is a little more difficult to record, but I would estimate that they have worked a total of around 50 hours or so. Which is a grand total of 367.5 hours of labor so far.

Let's say that the average Warbird shop charges $50/hr for their labor. The bill would be $18,375.00 just for this month's work alone! And that doesn't include parts and materials. The reason I'm telling y'all this is to give you a loose idea of what the owners of all of those wonderful Warbirds out there have to shell out money-wise when they have an airplane restored. We all owe them a debt of gratitude for spending such large sums of money to keep these airplanes flying. Not to mention the value of any volunteer that helps out with these ol' airplanes.

Okay, back to work for me. I just thought that was one of those little factoids that make you go, "Hmmm."

Gary

Gary,
your low on your labor, the cessna shop here charges 75hr, I am self employed and charge $50 just to take business away from the cessna shop.

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Matt Gunsch, A&P, IA, Warbird maint and restorations
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the cessna shop here charges 75hr, I am self employed and charge $50

Darn,

I wasted all that time in med school. I should have gone to get my A+P/AI

Our Shop rate is now $96 across the boards. Piston/Turboprop/Jet
I think we are still cheaper than some of the service centers.


Warbird guys pay for things? I thought we were supposed to do this bcause we........

_________________
"Hindsight is usually 20% off!"

Gary,You made me nervous - Seeing that corrosion.
You made me scared - Seeing the photo of an endmill in a drill chuck,use a collet if you have one.
and you made me laugh - 50 bucks an hour,You must be in the middle of nowhere.
Keep-up the good work Gary and you know warbird mechanics only get payed in T shirts and maybe a free lunch.

and Kenny $96 an hour at Jet,time to ask for a raise.

Dan & Needle, I suspect some of Alan's comments concerning volunteers may have been taken a bit out of context. I am not trying to speak on Alan's behalf but I did not get the impression that he was suggesting that it was amazing non of the members on here are helping at CAF. I think he was saying it was amazing that there are not more available volunteers within the organisation or living locally (withing 50 miles) that could help with the work on the Diamond Lil.

I have no idea of the reasons for this and can only guess that maybe as there are a large number of CAF aircraft the finite number of volunteers means that there are perhaps not enough to assist in all areas? Maybe the CAF base is not local to a large centre of population (I do not know - I have not yet had the privelage of a visit). There could be all manner of reasons, but to outsiders like us, many thousands of miles away, living in a much smaller but more crowded island, it can be difficult to comprehend the logistical and geographical problems associated with operating these historic aircraft in such a large country as the USA.

To Gary - you are doing a magnificent job and largely on your own. I am amazed at how many hours you put in and still find the time to do these reports and post pictures. Its wonderful to see.

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Warbird Colour - Authentic historic aircraft finishes http://www.warbirdcolour.co.uk

No need for nervousness. As of right now, the corrosion has been limited to the door that is no longer going to be on the airplane. I'm working on fabricating the new door as we speak.

The endmill in the chuck is the only choice I have. We have no collets that fit our "made in China" mill. I do move slowly with projects on it and our lathe. I've seen scary things happen when "machinery goes bad."

I had no idea that shop rates were so high now and that my estimate was so low. The point still stands though, that the Warbird owners put tremendous amounts of money into their projects and y'all should thank them for that when you see them at shows or any other event. It equally shows how important volunteers are to an organization, such as ours, since we don't have the funding to pay the "standard" shop rates...whatever they really are.

One thing I've found interesting about this thread, and why I've continued to keep posting on it, is that people get an accurate idea of what goes on in a non-profit flying museum to keep even a couple of their aircraft flying as well as trying to improve them on their way. Sometimes the posts will be interesting and informative. Other times they will reveal to everyone that we don't have the "proper" equipment, manpower, or skills to do a particular project in a "normal" manner. That's just a chance I take every time I make a post here. Do you think I'm going to catch some grief about posting a picture of some corrosion in a door? You bet I will. It's certainly nothing to be proud of, nor am I trying to glorify it. But it's the truth and it's what was discovered while project progressed. However, I will also post pictures of how that corrosion issue was resolved and how we went about doing it. We're not trying to hide anything. We are working hard to make our aircraft as safe as possible, while at the same time put them in as cosmetically appealing as time and money permits.

I have enjoyed seeing everyone's comments here...good and bad. They let me see that you are paying attention and that just makes me want to do my job better.

Gary

Gary-

Not to beat a dead horse on the shop rate thing, but 50-55 is pretty standard for a warbird restoration shop. I think most of the rates that you have had quoted that are higher are for GA or Jet maintenance. I have used three different warbird shops in the last year and they all have 50-55 rates.