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Post by kiwi285 on Aug 1, 2024 16:14:48 GMT 12
Denys - just wondered what the wing panels are off at the end of Dave's work bench.
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Post by agile on Aug 2, 2024 8:49:09 GMT 12
The wings are from the Hudson.
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Post by denysjones on Aug 3, 2024 21:12:33 GMT 12
Mother nature didn't come to the party this week on the weather front that I was hoping for and an on-site visit to get a top coat on last week's painting didn't eventuate and thus some of this week's intended installation work had to be held over. However on the home front I was able to get some matters progressed. Item one was preparing the undercarriage down pressure switch units for 2035. We have a number of such switches but lacked the mounting brackets for them. As luck would have it the two retraction rams came with some fixtures on them which, whilst they are not for that purpose originally, lent themselves to adaptation to the role and here they now be. You'll note that they are handed in respect of their installation as the rams are of course installed on the inboard sides of both the nacelles of the aircraft. I did get the conduit sorted out and fitted it to the port leg. The one completed bit of the intended work in the wheel bay was that the junction box went in along with the two conduits off it. The lower run is to the undercarriage up pressure switch and the upper goes to the sender unit for the aft fuel cell (tank) contents, said tank being the centre section bay on the other side of the wall. There was some non-2035 work done down in the hangars in preparation for a major team push scheduled for next Saturday but you'll have to wait for that
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Post by denysjones on Aug 10, 2024 21:59:07 GMT 12
Today was a bright and early start for a long pending job to receive attention from the usual candidates with help from Ray, Matt and others who were on hand to deliver and drive one of our favourite appliances namely a spider crane. Due to the confines we were working in and the nature of the target object we moved up a grade in terms of the size of machine being used. Thus first up was team conference, task delegation, and general morning chat. Then a series of trial lifts and adjustments of the sling positions to get a stable lift. Followed by lift off Then things got tricky with a bit of deft crane operator work to clear the roof structure and bits of Viscount to swing the wing to meet the centre section root. Next we really got up against it inching the wing into and onto the various connections followed by the insertion of the nine primary retaining pins which come down from the upper surface of the join and lock the tongues of the wing into the centre section receptors. More bolts then were fitted to the fore and aft vertical faces of the join followed by a liberal number, but not all, of the screws upwards from beneath whence we felt the join was aligned enough to move to the act of faith of the exercise. This was to let the weight off the crane and see if the calculations of the balance of a one-sided F27 was stable. If you go back to the post of Feb 3rd (page 44) and the concrete and steel construction..this is the engineer designed counter balance safety device. It was a moment of relief that no inkling of motion was detected when the crane relaxed, many thanks to Rory who ran the engineering numbers for us. So now we have the somewhat impressive sight of Our thanks for the help from the contractors guys who pitched in on the grounds that "we like this cool sort of stuff" All this didn't leave much time but I got some more prep work done on 2035 :-)
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Post by agile on Aug 10, 2024 22:23:36 GMT 12
Well done Denys and team! I was away working so missed this big day, which has taken a lot of preparation and organisation. So great to see the pic with the wing on!
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Post by skyhawkdon on Aug 11, 2024 11:10:05 GMT 12
Awesome to see.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2024 11:11:14 GMT 12
Great work team, it looks terrific!
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Post by markrogers on Aug 11, 2024 17:06:48 GMT 12
Awesome work, looking great.
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Post by denysjones on Aug 18, 2024 12:36:23 GMT 12
This week's homework hasn't involved much in the hardware line but lots in the trawling of manuals, contemplation, and email exchanges which ultimately led to a solution which revealed wasted effort going back twenty odd years. Over that time I have been trying to locate a pair of adaptors that fit on top of the carburettors and in turn support the top cowl and connect with the intake duct thereon. Based on our US manual for the AT-18 navigator training version of the Hudson I have been trying to locate a pair with a P/N of 162044. In all this time I've never found anybody with any. That is until this week when ChrisM got in touch. Chris has long known of my quest, but he has recently acquired a number of ex-Hudson R1820 assemblies with both their carburettors and adaptors fitted. However these adaptors bear no likeness to the illustration of 162044 that we had and they have a P/N of 72381. Here on the left is a 162044, that Chris also now has, along with a 72381. We both came to the conclusion that 162044 only relates to the AT-18 type of installation and as our Hudsons were ex-RAF we guessed that 72381 relates to the Hudson III (and possibly only that but how to prove it). As luck has it a few years back I got the RAF Museum to get scanned a copy of their AP1690C Vol 3, and some related papers, and send it to me all 1904 pages of it. When I found that the document didn't include illustrations I pretty much gave up on it until this week. Luckily therein was a table and index combined which translated Lockheed P/Ns to RAF Reference numbers and linked to pages earlier on which gave a schedule of parts. In this there was no mention of 162044 but 72381 there was. We rest our case as proven! It was even better than that though as when Chris sent me the photo above I knew immediately the exact shelf location in our store to go to and collect these For the entire time I'd been wondering where to get the wrong adaptors we had a pair of the correct ones on hand. The third item is a 70845 "Plate Carburettor Seal" which sits between the carburettor and 72381, so far I can only locate one of those. Never mind, onwards we go and the 70845, being stainless steel, quickly responded to a polish and coat of Cold Zinc clear preservative. Thus an early task yesterday was the removal of 28 nuts and bolts and 12 screws to separate the carburettor heat shroud from the engine shield so I could lift it and drop 70835 down over the studs on the carburettor head. Then after replacing said removals on goes 72391 "Screen Carburettor Air Scoop". Thus next week's home work is the two 72381's.
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Post by denysjones on Aug 24, 2024 21:31:01 GMT 12
Today's start was follow on from the other week's Friendship wing job. To gain access for the spider crane we had to demount some of the fencing around the aircraft area in the hangar and so reinstatement tasks launched the day. During the week I turned attention to the absence of the pitot head on the wing tip. A bit of a trawl around online led to selection of close up "walkaround" photos of an F27 in a museum which presented a good wingtip shot, including pitot. From the shot, and using a prominent panel which I could measure on BXG to determine scale, I knocked up an acceptable representation, in this morning's team's opinions, that will do for the while but which certainly makes the wing tip look more complete. Afternoon work was back onto matters-2035 Task one was more of the refurb surrounding where the undercarriage rams have to be installed. More tedious tubing related stuff here but the end is nigh of the process and the reinstatement looms. Task two was hunting out materials elated to the valves on the undercarriage brake lines. Despite queries online I haven't got any useful responses regarding the called out Aeroquip units. So as a fill-in I've decided to used a pair of non-return valve units surplus from other regions of the hydraulic system and so was sorting out the connectors etc for that. Finally I offered up one of the duly restored 72381 adaptors to a carburettor to see how things sat Looks ok to me apart from the question of what, if anything, connects to the obvious location on the side and thence how does it makes its way through the heat shield (aka cowl well eh Chrism :-) )!
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Post by chrism on Aug 25, 2024 20:48:49 GMT 12
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Post by denysjones on Aug 31, 2024 21:36:02 GMT 12
During the week I got the job done on the repurposing of the surplus hydraulic system valves to do service in the brake lines of 2035 and today got the port rendition installed featuring also the involved new made tubing running around the leg between the two flexible hoses. No irreversible harm was done in this process so should the unforeseen happen and we do ever acquire the Aeroquip items called out by the parts book it is a simple swap out job. Later in the day Dean delivered me the leg clamps for the starboard leg brake hoses. These are composites he'd welded up from several bits and pieces of other broken clamps and which are now off for finishing. This then occasioned the makeup of the second piece of the around the leg tubing. Dean was then engaged in more work pimping up the JT8D and its support stand, polishing and painting assorted surfaces as required. Chrism's helpful post from last week led me off another "I know those and where to get them" missions and so here is one of the 1 and 2/3rds set of the baffle units we have, with fire extinguisher tubes that Chris detailed. Well I knew we had the all along but had just put them aside in the "get to them one day pile" but Chris's post got me going on it all. By way of explanation, the Cyclone is held in the ring frame by nine bolts, one at each cylinder position and this baffle ring is mounted on said bolts. The ring is made of three segments which mount on 2,3,4 bolts all of which you may make out in this shot. The 2/3rds bit is that while we have this complete ring we have only two units of the second. Today I separated this one down to its bits and stripped off the various fittings to start the refurbishing process. During the week there was a fair bit of time on society works which involved no hardware or tools. We've just been through the process of revising our constitution to meet the requirements of the new 2022 Incorporated Societies Act and have obtained registration thereunder. Now we've been through our annual financial processes which again have changed due to alterations to the reporting standards of Charities NZ and we've completed our first audit clearance in the new format. We are very lucky to have the assistance in this of an auditor who gives his time pro bono, and the good name of his Queen St firm, so that donors can be assured that funds they donate are going to a genuine legally run and compliant body...many thanks Michael.
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Post by chrism on Sept 1, 2024 14:23:18 GMT 12
She's a big job to put those baffles in Denys! I should be able to help out with any missing baffle sections.
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Post by denysjones on Sept 7, 2024 21:23:14 GMT 12
A somewhat depleted team on site today due to several conflicts of interests. Not to worry. Alex was busy taking advantage of the warm temperatures, which enabled opening the workshop door, to apply dope the recent fabric works on HR339. George and Oscar sought escape from the odours to the metalwork shop to continue their work. Rob and Paul were busy on things R22 with the latter delivering another batch of home prepared items and them sorting out his next batch to take away. Down in the hangars Dean and Barry got into a some long planned works which we haven't been able to carry out when there was a chance of park visitors dropping in. This year the park has closed for winter, re-opening September 29th, on the basis of it always being a low time in visitor numbers thus several projects with the same visitor impact could be dealt to quicker and simpler. I busied myself with more of the current thrust on 2035 being that the second brake line run down the starboard undercarriage leg went in. Next it was the reinstatement of the deicer plumbing runs through the starboard centre-section undercarriage bay and other assorted pipe clamps and the like to finish off this work. Now it's a busy little plumbing area. After that some measuring and planning, for what has led to all that stuff, was done to hopefully enable next week's plan to proceed smoothly. To round out the day I also spent a brief time down with BXG doing a bit of touch-up paint work on the tracks for the inboard flap to set the scene for it to go on.
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Post by agile on Sept 8, 2024 8:51:35 GMT 12
A few pics to illustrate Denys' post above. The unusually warm weather has been great for fabric work, albeit making the workshop quite smelly for the others. The final large fabric to go on the fuselage is under the nose: There's still a bit of work to do along the machine gun door sills, so this has to stay undoped for now: The starboard side is a bit more tricky with the cockpit door, drift sight and trailing aerial apertures in addition to the wing root. In order to get it wrinkle free we started with one edge: Then doped down between the cockpit door and the machine gun door: Then at the risk of descending into meme territory one simply 'draws the rest of the owl': The bottom edges are reinforced with tapes cut 'on the bias' (ie at 45° to the weave of the fabric) which makes them a bit stretchier. Each of these tapes is hand-cut from offcuts: Under the nose is a single fabric panel that is mostly covered by the metalwork for the circular access panel (through which the spent .303 brass is removed). I was surprised how ropey the original fabric on NZ2328 looked in this area, but it turns out to be a bit of a barsteward to get it tight and get the edges straight: Still, I was reasonably happy with the result: Meanwhile George and Oscar have been making coolant tank brackets and straps for the Merlins, based on two original brackets and the rather pathetic remains of a strap that came with a tank acquired from a Canadian project: Brackets ready for welding: Straps and doublers cut: Dagy has been working on forming the removable panel that goes under the nose between the cannon blast panel and bulkhead #2: Tricky compound curve shape, and of course made to fit the specific aircraft. We'll use Nylon webbing instead of asbestos tape to seal the edges, at the lamentable cost of authenticity: While all that was going on we have removed all the unmachined Sitka spruce back to Dagy's place (since it always ends up going there for machining anyway), moved the timber rack and restowed, making the place much tidier. All the plumbing on the third shelf was retrieved from the scrap pile at Mapua:
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Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 8, 2024 10:31:20 GMT 12
Good work!
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Post by denysjones on Sept 14, 2024 21:29:23 GMT 12
A small team on site today, must be the weather, but nonetheless progress on most fronts. Dag, Angus and George carrying on with their Mossie tasks, Dave on the Sunderland, and Rob on things Robinson. My ambitions for 2035 failed due the no-show of an unsuspecting accomplice (failure to lodge leave request is duly noted :-) ) Never mind there's always other tasks I can fall back on. There were a few more small add-ons to go on the starboard works of the last few weeks but also prep work for the next push. This is the installation of the retraction rams which are like so many things in that items have to be moved to make way. The rams have to be installed from forward of the spar and that means making clearance around members of the undercarriage. It is hard to get a good shot of this area but here goes. The two members with the red ground lock superimposed are what makes retraction/extension happen and the obvious void hole at their intersection is where the ram attaches. Today I cleaned said holes (both sides of the aircraft) to fit the pin that goes therein that links the ram. Top left of the shot you can just see the ram trunion in the spar. Installation of the ram will mean the removal of the joint pin of the two rods and swinging them out of the way (one up one down) and feeding the ram up and rearwards. Hence no progress solo today but all is cleaned up and ready steady go. I then moved over to the port u/c bay and repeated the now familiar strip out of the deicer plumbing and junction box and related conduits. So, off home for this week's attentions, another repeat selection of suitably grubby bits now well understood, plus items of tubing.
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