Hadn’t planned on any Stirling work today, but the weather was so pants that it only really left one option…

So Graham and I braved the puddles and spent a few productive hours whittling down the countless tasks still to do.

Whilst Graham was busy drawing up and making formers for the Frame 4 lower support beam, I started re-assembling the Recuperator parts, starting with the cast mounting bracket. After a bit of a clean up the 3 original bolts were able to be re-used along with one of the nuts; always nice to use original parts wherever possible. The next job was re-assembling the pressure relief valve complete with it’s powerful spring which caused me a certain amount of trepidation, with my having to compress it in a vice. First attempt was unsuccessful with the end cap being launched at great speed past my right ear just missing me! After finding the cap on the other side of the workshop we had much better success after I enlisted Graham to maintain the pressure while I turned the cap. This will now be put aside while we draw up the main cylinder and source missing parts. If anyone has a turret recuperator (I assume they were fitted to other FN turreted aircraft) then we’d very much like to have a look at it to see if we can draw up the missing parts.

Next job was the fixed armour plate for the Pilots’ seat; thanks to our friends at Deelen museum who took the time to measure up specific seat components, we were able to make the mounting brackets and make a sheet metal template for the armour plate itself. Picking up on dimensions provided by them, we were able to drill the seat structure and slave it into position. Apologies for one of the photos which is blurred but I’m sure you’ll get the idea.

That’s it for another week, hopefully there’ll be a few more of us next weekend and these individual projects will progress a bit further

take care

John

Bonus mid week update for you. Whilst we’re still tying up loose ends with the Bomb Frames (measure twice cut once etc, etc) we can still work on the smaller items that will go to make the interior busy.

You may recall the Turret Recuperator, which I started stripping down as I was getting fed up with it cluttering the workshop up when all it needed was some TLC. It fought us all the way down to its constituent parts but now that’s complete it’s the slow process of making good.

Eldest son made the mistake of mentioning that they had a vapour honing cabinet at his place of work and rashly offered to have a go at finishing the parts off. The prototype was the valve cap I posted the other week, buoyed by that he gave the other parts a going over and the results can be seen below. As I’m sure you’ll agree the before and after photos show that the effort was well worth it.

Until next time

take care

John

morning all

Just Graham and myself at the workshop on Saturday, so a steady day of progress.

The Turn Director Mount has received some attention recently and as you may recall from a previous post had been badly crash damaged but was eminently restorable. The first part of this involved heat treatment to enable us to straighten the item out, this was kindly facilitated by a local company Wallwork who did this FOC. In the end this was an absolute breeze to straighten; however my attempt at cold welding the cracked leg can only be described as a failure as I couldn’t get the metal up to a hot enough temperature to melt the solder. I have a few options to get this professionally welded but this willtake a few weeks to get sorted.

We cleaned up some more of the components from the Turret Recuperator in prep for getting them vapour honed; this was a new process for me and I’m very pleased with the results as can be seen from the Hydraulic coupling that my son has had a go at. Apart from the wear and tear from crash damage and getting it apart it almost looks as good as new.

The ‘U’ section channel that forms the sides and some of the internal stiffeners is being made by a local sheet metal company. Ordinarily I’d make stuff like this myself but consistency is the order of the day for this and we need a lot of it so having used this company before who don’t charge the earth it was an easy choice. The Witches Hat stiffeners that make up the remainder of the step internals are all cut to size but Graham and myself have been wracking our brains to think of a way to joggle the top and bottom faces of these. After a couple of false starts we think we have a cunning plan and will work on a tool for these next weekend.

Finally, having promised imminent progress with the bomb frames, these are slightly delayed having reviewed the piece of wreckage we recieved the other week. This has highlighted a couple of areas that need tweaking on the CAD files so the formers and laser cutting data are having some modification prior to validation and issue.

A steady day but getting there bit by bit

John

Today was a mixed bag of making things, cleaning things, installing things and adjusting things. In the finest tradition of leaving best till last:

Adjusting – I’ve never been happy with how our bench folderhas been set up, so I took the top apart, cleaned up the bending fingers and adjusted the settings and it now seems to bend material cleanly and evenly, so a minor win there.

Installing – we’ve invested in a bench mounted belt sander, so Graham spent some time setting it up and drilling the mounting holes; only problem being that despite all the AGS we have and gash bolts, we didn’t have any of the right diameter or more importantly length. A quick trip to our local DIY superstore should sort that, but a bit annoying nonetheless.

Cleaning things – the final making thing couldn’t have been accomplished without the onerous task of removing stuck on masking tape which had been lefty on too long for marking out purposes. Application of fingernails and plenty of MEK finally got it shifted, but not without a fight.

Making things – after a couple of false starts and having to get the bead and flare lightening hole tool fettled, Cliff has been able to finish off the lower face of the larger of the two fold up steps between the Pilots seats. In the end it went without a hitch which was a good thing as there’s 40 of them in that panel alone and some 250 1/16″ pilot holes for the rivets. Cliff confessed that after all he glad he chose to be a Sootie not a Rigger! Photo below shows just how many holes are in this thing. This just needs some U section channel fabricating to form the panel edges then we can start assembling the top to lower skins of this item. Whilst we’re making the small things (see previous post) it’s hearteningh to see that we’re steadily making larger components now before we work ourselves up to the bomb frames proper.

Finally, a special thanks to Roracal of this Forum who kindly donated us a large box full of tools (gripper pins, C/sinks etc) and AGS all of which will be put to very good use

till next time

John

Ah yes

Afternoon all

Thanks to a very kind donation from Johan Graas in Holland, we have just taken delivery of a section of bomb bay keel structure. We were hopeful that this would be a useful piece to study and we certainly wasn’t disappointed!

On inspection, we believe that this part of the stbd longitudinal keel between frame 7 and 9; importantly it is pretty much undistorted and we have now confirmed that the calculated figures used in the CAD matches the physical structure. This is as a result of David Collins and Peter Howells forensic research and it’s the one area on the fuselage aft of frame 3 that we was not not 100% certain of. 

To that end we are hoping to have the cutting files for the bomb frames frozen and ready for submission to the laser cutting company in the next few weeks. With the formers in hand a steady production line of bomb frames is on the horizon

take care all

more updates at the weekend

John

Evening all

A lot of effort today for seemingly not much reward. On the plus side, Graham has nearly completed the W/Op panel ready for the A1134 Amplifier; just need to confirm the layout of the mounting brackets.

The rest of the time was spent stripping the Recuperator down along with the Turn Director mounting bracket. The former finally yielded the last of it’s pipe connectors with the application of heat and as Vyvyan from the Young Ones aptly put it ” a subtle blend of psychology and extreme violence!” After much faffing with the shot blaster, we’ve gradually started to remove the remains of concreted mud/sea life. This still needs a lot more though and I’ve decided not to strip this any further as I’m afraid that this will ruin the casting of the pipe connectors. There is absolutely no corrosion on this component at all which is somewhat of a marvel.

The Turn Director bracket needs a bit more stripping, but I’ve made contact with a local company who will heat treat this so that we can straighten it out, it will then need the cracked leg welding up further down the line.

Friend of the Project, John Scott is thinning down some extrusion which runs transversely under the pilots seats; the Port one mounts the Aileron autopilot servo and the aileron pulley bracket made earlier this year. The Stbd one is slightly simpler and is the support structure for the pneumatic tanks.

take care all

John

Thanks all for your kind words.

I think we’ve surprised ourselves how we’ve managed to keep things ticking over; to some extent I suppose it’s helped keep us sane through the bad times.

we look forward to having visitors again, and hopefully this won’t be too far away

take care

John