Sorry for the delay, but here is your belated update.....
We have a couple of extra volunteers here right now and along with the two or three semi-regular volunteers that have been showing up, there are signs of forward progress. One of our volunteers, Dave Miller, is taking pictures of his own and is writing down his experience for me to post here later. For now, here are a few photos from me regarding what project he's on....
Dave got started on the window installation for the tunnel gun compartment. This was one of those neat little things that the factory just threw a scab patch over and moved on. So the first thing Dave had to do was to just remove the little stringer splices that had been put in place along the fuselage and then mark the locations for the window frames. Fellow WIXer, Steve Corbett, had made these window frames a while ago and they work quite well.......
Again, I'll let Dave tell you later in his words how the process went, but I just snapped a couple of pictures as I went by occasionally, so this is how I saw the progress develop. When he started cutting the skins out for the windows, he used a large holesaw on the corners to make the radiuses, and then just used the saw blade on the die grinder to cut out the straight portions. After that, he just polished up the edges.........
Once the holes were cut out, he filled in the empty rivet holes that were exposed when removing the old stringer splices.........
I had a few issues to attend to yesterday afternoon, so I had to leave earlier than usual. However, when I got here this morning, I saw that he has finished the window installation on the right side (the white stuff is the protective film on the Lexan), and has started on the left side. I would imagine that he'll have this project finished today...........
So what have I been doing this whole time? Good question. The first part of last week was mostly spent trying to take care of the obligatory clerical issues of my job, parts ordering, and so on. I was able to finish making the bracketry to hold the tracks for the tailgunner's doors in place, however. And, later in the week, I started trying to design a roller that would work for the doors. It took me four or five prototypes before I was happy with the design, size and so on, but before I left work, I managed to get a set of rollers fabricated (20 in all). My mind just wasn't with me for the last five or so I built and I'm not happy with the quality of them. So, after I post this update, I will go back out and remake those.
The first thing I did was find some brass bar stock and drilled the hole in the center........
Then I cut the outer diameter (O.D.) down to the dimension needed for the lower tracks. It turned out that the upper tracks required a much smaller O.D. roller........
Then I used the part-off tool to cut the grove in the roller that the track will rest in........
The next step was to just start the last cut that will separate this roller from the rest of the bar stock so that I can file the sharp edges down. And just so y'all know, the photo of me holding the file is for reference only. I use both hands to stabilize the file while the lathe is turning. This type of equipment eats fingers, hands, and anything else it can get ahold of. So that's just something to keep in mind if some of these pictures just don't look like "action" shots.
...........
Once the sharp edges are filed down, I just finish parting the roller off and move on to the next one........
After lots of repetitive work, here are twenty new tailgunner's door rollers. Like I said though, I'll be making five or six replacements this morning..........
Okay, I hope that tides y'all over for now with the updates. We have some other stuff going on and I'll see about getting that posted a little later. Questions and comments are of course welcomed.
Oh, and trust me, as much as I'd like to say it's true, sleeping is NOT what I've been doing lately.
Gary
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