Warbird Information Exchange

The way you folks do it bears no relation to my handy dandy little rivet gun, which held my CJ7 together for 20 years...What exactly are those rods sticking up off of the skin of the airplane?
Just curious...Now that I think of it...I don't remember Rosie the Riveter doing that either

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

those are Clecos,
They are used to hold the parts together until the rivits are driven in place. Clecos are color coded for sizing, there are also draw Clecos, they have a wing nut on top and are used to pull really thick or stuborn parts together.

Muddy, I remembered a progam by EAA in Oshkosh, You go to their museum restoration facilty and spend a couple of days hands on with woodworking, riveting, etc. It is really designed for potential kit builders to sample different construction techniques, but may be of interst to you. It was held in the winter which is bleak in Wi. but they also made it fun, I even got a Cub ride.They have similar workshop demos at the convention July 23-29. Those "rods" may be Cleecos which are spring loaded like a big rivet and hold the skin or part in place and alinged until you drive the permanent rivet in.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Hey Muddyboots, somewhere, buried in the middle of the B-24 thread, is a small photo update that I posted about how a cleco works. I personally don't have the time to dig through it to find it, but I bet one of the fellow WIXers might be able to find it and put a link up for you.

Gary

Matter of fact, if any of you can take the time & go all the way through Gary's B-24 thread, not only can you learn about clecos, but you will probably get more sheet metal fabrication education than some of us did in A&P school, & no I am definitly not knocking my instructor (R.I.P.), we just did not have a lot of time in that section to gain the experience to be good at it. Gary you the man
Robbie

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Fly Fast Make Noise!

Awww, you're gonna make me blush.

There's also plenty of things posted on there on how NOT to do things.

Gary

Yes Gary, but what was it that instructors always told us? "We learn more from our mistakes than our successes."

Thanks for all the advice, gents! I'll dig through that thread and see what I can learn!

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."