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Post by denysjones on Nov 27, 2018 13:56:30 GMT 12
Carrying on from where we left off. The works to make the downlock and the support mount for the front gear proceeded without too much drama, apart from running repairs to the workshop power hacksaw which gave up the ghost in the course of cutting the materials for the support. I then dragged out my photos I'd taken of the nose gear ram in the F27 at Queensland Air Museum (QAM) a couple of years back and as I refamilairised myself with it a light came on in the gray memory bank that I had recently noticed some remarkably similar looking items on a shelf in our Nissen Hut deep store. Luck was with us, not just the fact that the old light bulb still came on, as there I found the barrel and two cap ends of the very beasty. So all we had to do was convert one of those caps to be a bottom and then replicate a ram shaft and the large C-shaped fitting on the end of that which attaches to the actuating bracket on the undercarriage unit. A quick call for help went out to QAM for some measurements and a couple of weeks later their V-P, Ron Cuskelly, obliged by contorting himself in the bay armed with a measuring device. Armed with Ron's figures I scanned and scaled said C-piece from an illustration in the maintenance manual. Other lengths we established by reference to the photos and measuring the appropriate members of the nose bulkhead the ram hangs on. The bottom cap was made by chopping the top lugs off the donor and attaching a length of the appropriate alu tube from stock and then applying a generous quantity of body bog to chamfer it in as per the real thing. The ram shaft was made from a length of 7/8" rebar from the scrap bin. Also from the scrap bin came a piece of plate steel from which our good colleagues at Ferrymead Railway cut out said C-piece. Yet another scrap bin bit provided a nice piece of chromed tubing to sleeve the exposed length of the "ram shaft" and give that proper look. After a few trial fits and adjustments to the "ram shaft length" a quick zap with the arc united the "ram" and C-piece. All that was left to do was application of a coat of paint and bingo one faux ram. Ron's comment was "If it fits I will accept full responsibility. If it doesn't I will invoke the Sergeant Schultz defence"
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Post by oj on Nov 27, 2018 21:23:55 GMT 12
Were you related to Captain Hook?
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Post by denysjones on Nov 30, 2018 20:27:29 GMT 12
Okay seeing it fits shall we let Ron off the hook...he's an Aussie after all, but a good mate from QAM oops should say that the red bits to the left are home mades to lock in place the down lock function of the u/c, again in lieu of having the real mc'koy bits If you look back to the post of July 29 you'll see the lock plate from that in the left of the new shot. so all of this is now leading up to a major event a couple of weeks forthcoming..hopefully but with costs so don't forget our GiveALittle page moving on now.......
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 30, 2018 21:44:34 GMT 12
Nice work!
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Post by kiwi285 on Dec 9, 2018 18:11:11 GMT 12
That looks really smart Denys. You are all doing a great job down there.
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Post by denysjones on Dec 22, 2018 20:30:45 GMT 12
As promised a special Xmas treat for BXG. This morning Alister Hill ex-Airwork Geraldine and now owner of a wonderous device called a Spider crane came to BXG. So at the end of a couple of hours of minor trials and tribulations there stands an F27 in all her glory and safety in enclosed comfort. Merry xmas old girl !
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 23, 2018 0:27:20 GMT 12
Wow, congratulations!!
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Post by agalbraith on Dec 23, 2018 6:27:26 GMT 12
Yep I have to say that impressive is an understatement when you stand there and look at the 2 together! Unbelievable achievement Denys and team....my hats off to you!
Actually was a great day to be with the team yesterday, as I have been feeling a bit of Auster burnout lately.
Got to catch up with Dylan from Avspecs and his lovely partner/wife? Dylan, I know the boys were thrilled to have you both there yesterday (if you are reading this), thanks from me for your knowledge and assistance/help with the old valve radio that was fitted to WE552.
So much going on there, with the Helicopter section, Sunderland cockpit and of course the Mosquito. I think Angus (working on the Mosquitoes electrical system) could have it all working again as he is so fastidious with what he is doing.
Great work team and thanks for a great day!
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Post by agile on Dec 23, 2018 10:03:12 GMT 12
While this was a team effort on the day, Denys put a huge amount of time and effort into making it happen. Great work mate. Yep I have to say that impressive is an understatement when you stand there and look at the 2 together! Unbelievable achievement Denys and team....my hats off to you! Actually was a great day to be with the team yesterday, as I have been feeling a bit of Auster burnout lately. Got to catch up with Dylan from Avspecs and his lovely partner/wife? Dylan, I know the boys were thrilled to have you both there yesterday (if you are reading this), thanks from me for your knowledge and assistance/help with the old valve radio that was fitted to WE552. So much going on there, with the Helicopter section, Sunderland cockpit and of course the Mosquito. I think Angus (working on the Mosquitoes electrical system) could have it all working again as he is so fastidious with what he is doing. Great work team and thanks for a great day! As always it was great to see you Ants. Angus has been a real find - like the other half-dozen or so in the hard core of volunteers, we are lucky to have him.
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Post by agile on Dec 23, 2018 10:06:27 GMT 12
Also, I may have spent the entire morning working around the spider crane with this in my head. Just saying.
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Post by baz62 on Dec 23, 2018 16:59:54 GMT 12
As promised a special Xmas treat for BXG. This morning Alister Hill ex-Airwork Geraldine and now owner of a wonderous device called a Spider crane came to BXG. Well done Denys and Team Ferrymead! That Spider Crane is a cool bit of kit!
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Post by kiwi285 on Dec 24, 2018 8:42:27 GMT 12
Fantastic work from the team down at Ferrymead. Working with old aircraft you get to realise just how much work goes on in the background to get to the point of putting some of the major items together. She looks really great with the gear down. Never heard or seen of a spider crane before - a neat little machine.
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Post by aeromedia on Dec 24, 2018 20:17:40 GMT 12
Good work Denys. Lovely to see our dear old "ex" having all this great effort expended on her. Well done.
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Post by denysjones on Dec 25, 2018 8:28:35 GMT 12
Baz & Mike
They sure are a great bit of kit. I knew they existed and a bit of Google-aid got me to locating Alister. I found there are some four here in CHC but not all for general hire.
It has a maximum height lift of 10m and weight lift of 2tonnes. With all the legs folded away you can then get it anywhere with double door access.
Alister officially closed his business down on Friday 21st. He, with a smile, declined my suggestion he just leave the crane with us. As he plans to sell it in the next couple of months we've now got to crack on with the prep work to enable the Dart and prop to go in place before he disposes of the unit.
Peter,
Time you paid us visit old man you're overdue by now methinks.
btw merry xmas folks
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Post by denysjones on Dec 30, 2018 10:28:29 GMT 12
A slightly different post to end the year... What's the relation between this access hatch cover and a black rubbish bag? Well said cover is from the underside of the centre section installed on BXG last week and is between the nacelle and the fuselage. It was held in place by only 7 of the 66 screws it should have and said screws were not in the best of health and the surface of the cover and the counter-sinks for the missing screws were all in need of refurbishing. (See around the screw holes on the upper part of the right side of the cover.) Luckily all 7 screws came out with only a tiny bit of persuasion and that then revealed that the whole of the floor of the bay between the nacelle and where the fuselage attachments hang down was carpeted in birds nest material approx 3-4inches deep...so that's where the rubbish bag came into play. Just another of the joys of the job. However in amongst the nest material was a rather brittle plastic ziplock bag which, not having counted them, appears to be the remaining attachment screws. See you next year folks.
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Post by kiwi285 on Jan 1, 2019 9:49:18 GMT 12
It is amazing the amount of nesting material that get into some of these places. There were a couple of plastic bags full of this muck came of out the four Avenger wing panels when we removed some of the panels. They are industrious little buggers. Regarding the screws, sometimes you are lucky and on others you aren't.
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Post by denysjones on Jan 26, 2019 20:25:44 GMT 12
Saturday night bit of trivia stuff...NZ are losing the T20/ODI whatever so escape from the domestic management watching the game. One wee bit of F27 material for contemplation is one of the lower segments of the aft end of the undercarriage nacelle which we couldn't get to while we had the wing segment off the a/c. So today drill out the rivets and take home for descrub etc. The big point (forgive me for driving this home) is to point out the degredation of the material from BXG's time in the open here in NZ and compare that to times in hot equatorial climates...not suggesting DC-8's might have these problems of course....post refurbishment photos will follow The small items in the foreground are fabrications resoughted to due to attainable nonavailability of real items. These are what are called banjos and go on the ends of hydraulic line in places like B&P Type C turrets on Hudsons (got your attentions Dave !!) So after finding the real ones cost several GBP I've begun casting them in resin as the turret needs 30 odd. cheers So after a bit of drilling and x rivets later we have the components apart and more of the corrosion that is going on between the pieces are exposed.... Thereafter a work over with the good old striptex disk (the plastic abrasive power tool accessory) results in clean surfaces, except for the bottom unit which is actually one of the skin stringers for the nacelle to which the unit e (inboard and outboard) attach and I'm going to look into various stocks of material we have to determine about replacing it or having to refurb it. you might just get another update tomorrow...
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Post by denysjones on Jan 29, 2019 15:33:58 GMT 12
Our stocks did yield appropriate stringer material so that saved a bit of work. Now after priming, painting, and reassembly we get the unit finished and can now move on to doing the same to its twin. cheers
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Post by kiwi285 on Feb 2, 2019 14:55:40 GMT 12
Sometimes simple looking parts can be made up of numerous smaller parts. If one is bent or stretched than it has to come apart to get at it successfully. Great work Denys.
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Post by denysjones on Feb 2, 2019 20:50:06 GMT 12
This will include an addenda to the post of Oct 27 last and the comment for Baz to expect something to be forthcoming, sorry for the delay Baz but here we go. When we got NZ2035 in situ were two mountings for the IFF systems. One on the side wall of the cabin is for the RC255 unit which is essentially the control system and the second was on the floor (as per aforementioned post) for the IFF T/R unit. The latter beast is a rara avis and luck came to us last year when Dag Guest, our Mosquito man, was back in the UK with Tony Agar (google him if you don't know who he is) and Tony suddenly profered a unit and asked if we might need it. Dag emailed me a photo of the data plate and yes we needed it. Tony generously donated it. The major point is that it is a USN version, designated ABK-1 and so rare that in the USA they sell, if found, for up to $US2000. The background, short version, is that Bendix in the US re-engineered the RAF IFF and then contracted several firms to manufacture them for the USAAC and USN. The RNZAF drew such units from USN stocks as we operated in the USN controlled area of the Pacific and so for NZ2035 we needed a USN version of the T/R and as luck would have it Tony's was an ABK which is the USN. So very kindly our good friend "Farm machinery Fred" (see previous posts) slipped it into his latest container ex-UK and last Sunday night the courier division of Galbraith Auster Inc delivered it to me. So now NZ2035 isresplendent with (I believe) the only IFF sets in a preserved Hudson in NZ. This is the RC255 set on the port fuselage wall....follow the cables And here we have the the ABK (the box in the rear of the shot) in the old girl. obviously deepest thanks to all the parties involved.
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