I've gone to the Dark Side (Caution: H34 content)

Speaking of “priming”, it was always fun to start up the R-1820 at night time…
Despite its size it was a very agile helicopter.
Fun to fly.

Regarding the magnesium skinning, for technical reasons we had to leave a S-55/H-19 (similiar in construction to the H-34) on Bird Island /Port Elizabeth South Africa for a short while(early 1970’s). Upon returning we could push our fingers through the a/c skin!
That was it for repairs!

Have Fun and Good Luck with your work.

We’ll it needs a good primer, go anywhere near sea water in a magnesium aircraft and your left with a bucket of bolts.

Maybe the idea was to put so much primer on that it imparted some extra structural strength to the flimsy skin?! Some very neat repairs there Mr ZRX61!

I’ve no idea what the hell they used for primer, but I hit a spot with #80grit on a DA sander & it barely scratched it… plus the primer is about 0.040 thick.

Now you know my most of the RAF’s Wessex eventually ended up as aluminium skinned.

Looks like you have your work cut out there ZRX ; )
I have only done a few skin jobs over the years – one was a real ‘busmans holiday’ 😀
I was visiting my old gliding club at Gwelo,Zimbabwe in 1985 and ended up doing a wing repair on an L13 Blanik for a couple of days instead of drinking beer and flying (not necessarily in that order ; ))
I believe the rivets cost a bottle of whisky from a certain airline 273 klicks to the north 😀

The only downside was that the bu66ers made me fly on the air test…inc Loops,chandelles and tight turns,but I was pleased to say that the wings stayed on and the aileron trim was spot on (I had hung a weight on the ‘tiptank’ to try to keep the wing from twisting whilst the skin was removed) !!

During

After

In a seemingly futile attempt to fix damage before the owner installs more dents…

…while I was in the midst of fixing this:

…..this happened one night when it got “a bit blowy” & the tail swung into the building

…which now looks like this:

They weren’t all scrapped….there’s a few around with a lot less work needed if you need a lawn ornament !

The majority were. The irony of that deal is the magnesium ended up going to Vietnam for use in explosives….

Like this one…………?

They weren’t all scrapped….there’s a few around with a lot less work needed if you need a lawn ornament !

The main issue with the skins is they crack right along the edge of formers/stringers etc leaving a 9/16in wide piece of magnesium riveted in place.

Plan for now is *lawn ornament* but open to offers. It has USN Vietnam history. Probably getting a USMC paint job.

It came out of that yard in Az where dozens of others were scrapped a couple of years back.

Nice project! I love H-34s. What’s the story on this one?

Nice to see someone working on the old girl. What are the owner’s plans for it?
But it is a 50+ year old airframe made out of fragile stuff.
A friend is reskinning a good part of a Grumman goose…a stout airframe…and its be reskinned and or repaired more than once before.
So I guess that’s the price of having old things around. Rather like rust on old cars.

Keel piece also from the parts donor.