Re: Diamond Lil
Thu Mar 22, 2007 4:04 am
I had to input www.aviationmuseum.co.au to get to the site. The bomber looks great in the semi-flat finish, this is what we use in the UK too - a great compromise between ease of cleaning and authentic appearance.Mustang51 wrote:Have a look at the Temora Aviation Museum site (www.aviationmuseum.com) and see the finish on the Hudson bomber.
Any plans to extend the policy to the Spitfire VIII?
Thu Mar 22, 2007 12:28 pm
I was mowing the yard this morning when it hit me--everything that normally needs to be wiped down after a flight will automatically go from matte to gloss black! Seriously, when you get up close to the paint that Gary is using I don't think cleaning will be too much of a problem. The black is not dead flat, at least not yet, and should allow for fairly easy wipe-downs.
Scott
Scott
Thu Mar 22, 2007 7:53 pm
Deleted, duplicate post
Last edited by RickH on Fri Mar 23, 2007 11:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Thu Mar 22, 2007 7:54 pm
The F-4 is dead flat. She's starting to look like a real F-4 now. Cleanup is a bear !
The B-25 and B-24 in semigloss.
The B-25 and B-24 in semigloss.
paint
Thu Mar 22, 2007 8:08 pm
When my Spitfire was in Canada it had gloss paint on it and to me looked funny. Woody then had a nice repaint that was close to flat. When I had it redone we had a book of authentic colors so we tried to match it. I did not want one of those shinny ones that look like a corporate jets with Imron. The paint folks advised the semi gloss would last longer, especially in standing up to UV and solvents like avgas, rather than pure flat. I would do it again that way, unless I had a one of a kind plane that would only be in static display in a museum. For Lil I think two opinions should be given a lot of weight, that of whoever is putting up the restoration money, and Gary who has done or managed most of the work.
Thu Mar 22, 2007 9:44 pm
Mark V
Eventually when the aircraft are repainted at Temora it is my hope that they all go semi-gloss.
Others are right also, Gary should be determining what the paint is as he is looking after the machine. Just wish I could open the progress shots. No trouble seeing the F4, B-24 and B-25 shots......
Eventually when the aircraft are repainted at Temora it is my hope that they all go semi-gloss.
Others are right also, Gary should be determining what the paint is as he is looking after the machine. Just wish I could open the progress shots. No trouble seeing the F4, B-24 and B-25 shots......
Fri Mar 23, 2007 3:32 am
Mustang51 wrote:Just wish I could open the progress shots. No trouble seeing the F4, B-24 and B-25 shots......
Don't know what to tell you on the progress shots.
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.
Gary
Fri Mar 23, 2007 4:59 am
Not much of an update here (hope to have you a better one soon), but Shorty's been working his tail off to get the cockpit back together, and I thought it would be nice to post a picture of it so far. He's been doing most of the work himself, with a little help from Andy and me. It's not quite finished, as I have some labeling and wiring to get finished, along with several other little details, but here's what it looks like as of this morning.......
Gary
Gary
Fri Mar 23, 2007 6:11 am
Wow...that flight deck is really starting to look like a bomber!
A lot different than when I last photographed her in Kalamazoo in '04.
SN
A lot different than when I last photographed her in Kalamazoo in '04.
SN
Fri Mar 23, 2007 9:07 am
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
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
Fri Mar 23, 2007 9:13 am
Oh, and since I've been getting quite a few requests about what our tour schedule will be this year, I got with our Tour Director and he sent me the following.....
Confirmed stops
July 6th to 8th. - Scott AFB in Bellvue, Ill
August 10th to 12th - Niagra Falls, NY Air National Guard air show.
August 24th to 26th - Indianapolis, Ind. (Mt. Comfort)
Sept 7th to 9th - Minot AFB show
Sept 9th to 16th - Minot, ND - Dakota Territory Air Musuem.
Obviously, this is NOT our complete schedule. Just the confirmed ones that could be published. There are quite a few more that are in the works, but just haven't been finalized. I'm not really the person to ask if we're going to be at a certain location at a certain time, but if you would like to have us at your event, PM me and I'll be happy to pass along that info to the proper folks.
Gary
Confirmed stops
July 6th to 8th. - Scott AFB in Bellvue, Ill
August 10th to 12th - Niagra Falls, NY Air National Guard air show.
August 24th to 26th - Indianapolis, Ind. (Mt. Comfort)
Sept 7th to 9th - Minot AFB show
Sept 9th to 16th - Minot, ND - Dakota Territory Air Musuem.
Obviously, this is NOT our complete schedule. Just the confirmed ones that could be published. There are quite a few more that are in the works, but just haven't been finalized. I'm not really the person to ask if we're going to be at a certain location at a certain time, but if you would like to have us at your event, PM me and I'll be happy to pass along that info to the proper folks.
Gary
Fri Mar 23, 2007 9:17 am
Gary, thanks for the update. Lookin' good. I sure hope you folks make it up to Oshkosh. I would love to see her in person.
Fri Mar 23, 2007 9:20 am
WOW
..doors & rollers look slicker than S___!
WOW
Fri Mar 23, 2007 9:39 am
AWESOME!!! Those roller doors are going to be incredible!
A quick question about the cockpit, which by the way looks great as well...
What happened to the little data plate that used to be on the instrument panel? I saw it in Tulsa, and it was on the old picture someone posted, but I couldn't find it in your new picture. Not a biggie, just curious.
kevin
A quick question about the cockpit, which by the way looks great as well...
What happened to the little data plate that used to be on the instrument panel? I saw it in Tulsa, and it was on the old picture someone posted, but I couldn't find it in your new picture. Not a biggie, just curious.
kevin
Fri Mar 23, 2007 9:43 am
tulsaboy wrote:
What happened to the little data plate that used to be on the instrument panel? I saw it in Tulsa, and it was on the old picture someone posted, but I couldn't find it in your new picture. Not a biggie, just curious.
kevin
It's still there...for now. Has the "wrong" data on it. We're making new data plates that will be more accurate.
Gary