Well, here's something I've been losing sleep over for many moons now...how do I get those stinkin' tail gunner's doors to work? Once I made those tracks (a lonnnng time ago), I started running out of good ideas. If you recall, I had made a buttload of rollers, but that idea didn't work out at all. So, I just kept thinking about it and thinking about it and thinking about it.
It's even gotten to the point where, because of the ensuing deadline, I've even gotten some of my biggest supporters in the Squadron nervous, and they have suggested that I just cover up the area with sheet metal, canvas, or similar, and get to it next year. I don't blame them for being concerned, because I was too, but I wasn't going to give up on it just yet.
Then, several nights ago, while trying to sleep (unsuccessfully), I had a brainstorm. Those newly acquired bomb doors we received had most of their rollers still in tact, so perhaps I could figure out a way to use them. Well, after thinking about it over several more days, I came up with a plan.
Since several of the old bomb door roller assemblies were already broken, we were obligated to have more made up at some point. So if we're going to have to make five or six, why not make 25 or 50? That way we not only have spares, but the ones we use will be of a newer (and hopefully stronger) material. So with that logic in my mind, I decided to "sacrifice" a few of them to make the tail gunner's doors work.
Here's how I went about it.........
This is what the the rollers look like installed on the bomb doors (notice the broken one and one with missing parts).......
Now, don't think I hadn't thought about this next step over and over and over before doing it...but here's what the bomb doors looked like after I chopped the rollers off........
I then bead blasted all of the pieces I cut off and soaked them in some Liquid Wrench, to free everything up. Some are fairly corroded, so I'll have to cut some more off of the doors to get good ones. There is a method to my maddness, however. The reason I cut them off where I did was because they were simply too long, in their original form, to work on the tailgunner's doors. I also wanted to keep the "base" of the rollers riveted in place on the bomb doors so that the doors will be less likely to get damaged on the ends........
My next step was to even out the ends of the roller arms (where I cut them). They need to be straight so that the roller will lay on the tracks evenly........
Then I drilled a #21 hole in the center of the roller arm........
And then tapped it for 10-32 threads.........
After that, I went back over to the sander to radius the corners so that the arm will fit nicely in the corrugated skins I'll be using for the inside of the doors. I also drilled a #10 hole right at 1 inch above the edge of the skin. This is where the attaching screw for the roller arm will go......
To make sure this was going to work, I did a quick test fit on the airplane....
Then, with the second roller in place, I could start sliding the door to make sure this is going to work out.......
Naturally, Mosquito the Cat had to come up to check it out. It was looking like he was getting kind of suicidal there for a minute though!
So, as a trained Animal Suicide Hotline representive, I was able to get him talked off the ledge and even got him to smile. He just loves the joke about a mouse, a hamster, and a canary walking into a bar.
.........
Anywaaaaay, after getting four of the roller assemblies made, I was finally able to get a good idea of what some of those thoughts rattling around in my head were going to produce.......
Naturally, there is still plenty of other work to be done to these doors, this is just how it looks right now. I'll get back to work on it as soon as I make this post.
Oh, and before anyone asks, NO, I'm not leaving the corrugated skin on the outside. It just makes for a nice, flexible piece of structure for the door assembly. I was never able to get any interior photos of the tailgunner's section and the factory drawings we have are just slightly better than pitiful. However, from one of the exterior photos I have, it looks like the factory may have used a similar corrugated design in the same manner that I've chosen. Since I don't have an aluminum spot welder here, my installation isn't going to be as slick and clean as the factory's, but it should be okay. There will be a piece of .020" skin on the outside of the corrugated stuff. Here is a test piece I built before I started with this project to make sure it would still be flexible enough for what I'm trying to do.......
So that's what I'm working on today. I'll hope to have another update for y'all sometime soon.
Gary
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Perhaps Scott, or one of the other WIX Grand Poohbahs could help you out. I think most of the other WIXers are able to see the pics. Maybe there's something else I could do when I post them? I dunno.
