Recovered today from airfield dump

USAAF Dump dig..

Some nice items came to light here at the weekend……

http://usaaf.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=739

Thanks I will ,give that a try, 🙂

There are quite a few of these they are very thin and its hard to clean them without breaking them, I guess if they threw harness in there ought to be some stainless buckles as well?

Graham, a wire brush should be far from your tool of choice if you wish to preserve any of these items. I suggest a less mechanical technique along with a little patience:

For heavily corroded items and especially assemblies, including ferrous parts, such as various steel alloys, cast iron etc. I strongly reccomend dumping them in a solution of Deox-C or other similar chelating product. Place in a solution and keep it at about 30-40°C and you will be amazed at the results. Doesn’t harm skin, plastic, chrome, rubber, firmly attached paint etc. For example takes about six hours to turn a heavily corroded car brake caliper support frame back to solid base metal. (agitating with a nylon brush every hour helps too)

It’ll strip very heavy oxide layers from impossibly corroded items and leave just the solid base metal, pits and all. Leaves parts with a uniform grey colour. Can make an assembly fall apart with ease as opposed to brute force. The only catch is, it’s best for parts that you can immerse and it doesn’t work on alloys, though does remove scale associated with ferrous parts in contact.

http://www.bilthamber.com/deoxc.html

Pretty cheap too.

I’m racking my brains to remember what it looks like, but I have an idea that there is an assembly similar to the one in the middle-bottom of the first picture (appears to have a universal joint) that operates the 4 way fuel c0ck in the engine nacelle of the Mosquito. I’ll have a look next weekend.

Sorry, I put you crook with that one. I found a picture of what I was thinking of, #82:
[ATTACH]188920[/ATTACH]

Tempting offer Graham, the Forster can be tuned down to filter out surface fragments and find those bigger, deeper lumps. The stainless piece you found is from a radio headset. A lovely example currently on ebay, very reputable seller….

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110589904010&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

That would amazing if you could find the time.
Thats certainly one of the more honest sellers on ebay and Hes spot on with the description that they were also used by the RAF I think we just proved that. ;):D How ever the pair I just dug were of coarse worn by DB, he used to call himself Herbert hence the HB initials !!:diablo:

There could be a few things which would bring digging to a swift conclusion.

I think I would want to make sure there was no nastiness hiding under the clay…?

This site looks worth a run over with a detector…

Tempting offer Graham, the Forster can be tuned down to filter out surface fragments and find those bigger, deeper lumps. The stainless piece you found is from a radio headset. A lovely example currently on ebay, very reputable seller….

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110589904010&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

Sounds like you need to run a magnetometer over your field Graham!

Hello Ian

Have had the same idea but it would go nuts the surface is so full of metal its a waste of time even using a metal detector. When I have cleared a decent area would like to try it to see whats under the clay. Any chance you pop over for a day?

Could not resist having a quick clean of a few more bits, one has a ceramic green tube with a brass top, I think one might be internals from an instrument, one seems to be a small catch made of stainless and lastly a small brass drum with a stainless lid and reference number ES-695200 appears to have electrical pins sticking out of the top the catch has HB-7 on it.

Sounds like you need to run a magnetometer over your field Graham!

In 3rd picture of your last post, the sprung flip cover for starter/fire extinguisher etc etc push button?

Its got a 27N number on it which as I recall is as you say Fire Extinguisher possibly part of the mosquito. Have decided to get a small mecanical sieve clear all the surface parts and then dig to see if the clay is a capping layer. I have allot the paper work on the airfeild from Kew and it says 200 cat E engines were dumped. I know it sounds like another tall story but it seems strange that all this debris from so many aircraft types is only 18″ to 2ft deep. Every where I dig its the same, dig out 2ft then its solid clay. I know from my experiance as a surveyor that tips sites which i used to monitor are built up of layers of rubbish and soil its aids compation and prevents the whole thing becoming unstable.

In 3rd picture of your last post, the sprung flip cover for starter/fire extinguisher etc etc push button?

Thanks Tony

Thought it looked Hurricane, so thats Mosquito, Hurricane, Horsa and Anson out of two holes 2m square! will be interesting to see what appears tomorrow when i clean the other parts.

I think the lever or what ever it is is Hurricane made of stainless and starts with A prefix?

That stainless bit is the strap that links the lap strap of the Sutton Harness (2 off per aircraft) end to the seat side on a Hurricane. My be a photo of my Hurri with is fitted on my website

Doesnt look like the anson levers…

I think the lever or what ever it is is Hurricane made of stainless and starts with A prefix?

That first ones interesting… ..nding Flare Release (Stbd)

Got another bucket full right next to the last hole going to take a day to clean. Here are some small bits i gave a quick strub.