I turned 31 on October 12 and, as a birthday gift, my wife and I made the three hour roadtrip from Aiken to Asheville to visit Ray and
Lucky Thirteen. We had met in person only once before regarding the unfortunate Columbia B-25 and Curtiss-Wright Hangar, but this meeting was under much happier circumstances. Photobucket has been a pain to a lot of you guys as of late, which seems to be pushing everyone more toward Facebook. I don't really care for Facebook so I'm sharing these pics of Ray's shop to help spread the word for you other non-Facebook types.
Boeing B-17F-65-DL
Lucky Thirteen [42-3455, 384BG] flew seven combat operations before she was lost over Reims on 6 September 1943.
Lucky Thirteen is on the right,
Liberty Belle is on the left.
The cockpit section you see here is from the short-lived "Twelve O'Clock High" TV series.
This is what he was working on when we got there.
To be honest, I have no working knowledge in metal fabrication. I am a historian, and thus far, the most help I've given to the project is locating Ray photographs detailing the single-gun nose-mount used on late-model B-17Fs. That said, I do have a small carpentry shop, so I have volunteered to replicate some of Ray's pieces.
The photo above is the floor piece that sits immediately to the front of the waist entrance door. Usually an Elsan chemical toilet was placed here, though crews sometimes removed it because of its infamous discomfort.
The photo above is the floor piece that sits behind the tail wheel, just to the right of the tail gunner's hatch. We cannot find any clear reference on this piece so I have no way of knowing if it is the correct length. Considering that is came from an old nuclear testing site, it is a wonder I have any reference at all. If any of you have anything on this piece, please post its dimensions.
I'm also going to try and build some of the posture seats so common to early Boeing aircraft.
Hope this is of some interest to everybody.
-G. Blume
http://www.gblume.com