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12jaguar

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August 4, 2024 at 7:36 am in reply to: Stirling Project Update #727590

12jaguar
Participant

Yesterday saw us fettling the jig set up so that it matched the CAD drawings. This involved raising the side and ctr beams by about a 1/4″, and levelling the jig up, so transversely and longitudinally it’s all within 10′ of each other, which I think you’ll agree is close enough for government work

With this all levelled, we trial fitted Fr11. This now sits much better between the 2 keels and has pretty much the same clearance at the bottom as the original structure we hold.

Next job will be to fit the top angle extrusions to the keel members

Till next

John

July 28, 2024 at 7:22 am in reply to: Stirling Project Update #728033

12jaguar
Participant

After an unexpected break from workshop activities, it was back to work this weekend. Even though it was just the 2 of us, a lot of progress has been made.

Firstly, Andy has been on site for a couple of days forming outer bomb frame blanks, to the extent that we now only have 2 more to form (fr14).

With all of the bomb door hinges now in place, it was time to think about the bomb bay jig extensions which will be used to determine frame positions and height of the bomb floor. These had previously been made and surprisingly when slotted in position they were level towithin 10 minutes of each other, which is good enough for government work

There’s still some fettling to do as we think the overall height needs some adjustment before we drill the jig legs and bolt into position.

Between us, we also bent the top extruded angles to the bomb keel girder. These have a 4° slope running aft from Fr13 in them. So with some application of heat and a tube over the top of them to assist in bending, these have now been formed ready for attaching to the top of the keel using the jig to determine their position.

This feels like real progress as we can now think about installing the centre bomb frames between the keel girders

John

July 14, 2024 at 10:36 am in reply to: Stirling Project Update #728813

12jaguar
Participant

With 4 of us on site yesterday, quite a bit of progress was made.

Andy, Graham and Cliff worked on the first of the outer bomb frame arches. The photos show Andy and Cliff removing the Fr6 port outer blank from the former, so by the end of the day we had the first frame set fully formed. Another jig needs to be made so that the keel attachment brackets can be added.

In the meantime, I followed on from last week in adding the bomb door hinge blocks to the bottom of the port bomb keel. Just 2 more sets to add, then hopefully we can then add the side parts to the bomb bay jig so that we can set the height of the structure. Then we should be able to get it to start looking like a bomb bay

Cheers

John

June 29, 2024 at 7:39 am in reply to: Stirling Project Update #729765

12jaguar
Participant

That’s great news Geoff, hope he had a Happy Birthday

June 27, 2024 at 6:04 pm in reply to: Stirling Project Update #734092

12jaguar
Participant

Thanks guys

Hi Geoff, saw that, but didn’t comment as he spent most of his time on Lancs

Cheers

John

June 23, 2024 at 8:58 pm in reply to: Stirling Project Update #734551

12jaguar
Participant

Apologies for the lack of updates recently but yours truly has had some serious diversions to contend with including a well needed week away with the family.

Yesterday saw my first visit to the workshop in several weeks and I was pleased to see that some progress had been made whilst I was away. Although it was just myself, Graham and Nathan on site, we soon cracked on.

Graham was busy recovering bomb door hinges, whilst Nathan and I started Installing the means to hang them. In essence they’re simplicity in itself with 2 machined steel blocks which sandwich an aluminium lever arm. Unfortunately we don’t know the exact position of all of these for the section we’re doing, although we do have some pieces of wreckage that give us some more info. Thus we had to contend with fitting the forward three hinges on the stbd keel, of these the middle one is a beefed up aluminium plate which has the mount for the pushrod that operates the doors.

Whilst it looks to be a small diversion, it is in fact, critical the we get these fitted as these will define the true height of the bomb bay floor, which will be our next challenge moving forwards

Cheers

John

May 13, 2024 at 6:22 pm in reply to: Stirling Project Update #738237

12jaguar
Participant

Hi all

Whilst Graham and I riveted Fr7 centre together, Nathan spent some time drilling port side keel doublers then doing the thankless task of deburring the resulting holes.

So we now have frames 6, 7, 9 and 11 mostly assembled. Just for giggles we slaved 6 and 7 into the space between the keels; with our prototype upper fr14 offered up, you start to gain an impression of the size of the structure!

No update from me next weekend unfortunately

John

May 6, 2024 at 6:18 pm in reply to: Stirling Project Update #738691

12jaguar
Participant

One pic I forgot to post is one of a prototype fuselage upper Frame (14) which we’ve had made. Cliff is stood next to it to provide a sense of scale

John

May 5, 2024 at 8:42 am in reply to: Stirling Project Update #738728

12jaguar
Participant

Apologies, it’s been a while but life gets in the way sometimes.

Anyway, in the last update, I mentioned the return of some old friends; these being the FN5a front turret and the flight deck. The Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum kindly had these on display as we didn’t have the space in our last building and corrosion was likely to be an issue. We collected these a couple of weeks ago and are now safely in the workshop at Graveley.

Despite only 3 of us being on site yesterday, we got a surprising amount done. Cliff was busy prepping a number of bomb frames ready for a mega riveting session and Graham was recovering parts from the bomb door operating mechanism. This might seem a long way off, but we have to get the hinges sorted as oart of building the keel structure so will be need at some point hopefully in the not too distant future.

While, Cliff and Graham were beavering away, I progressed the Port bomb bay keel girder. Still loads to do on this and the Stbd one but I was able to pin it together to show both girders side by side, hopefully this gives an indication of the size and space of the structure we have to work with

John

April 14, 2024 at 7:58 pm in reply to: Stirling Project Update #739657

12jaguar
Participant

Hi all

Belated update, but personal life takes priority sometimes.

With just myself and Cliff in this Saturday, progress was always going to be limited. That said I’m pleased to state that work has started on the Port bomb keel if only to drill one of the lower extruded angles using its Stbd match as a template. With 2 of us drilling, disassembling and deburring this took most of the day unfortunately

However, I took some time out and started to disassemble the stbd keel to keep on top of the deburring. This led to the first keel diaphragm doubler getting deburred, cleaned and primed ready for assembly.

Next week should see the return of some old friends…

John

March 19, 2024 at 9:26 am in reply to: Stirling Project Update #740673

12jaguar
Participant

Hi PS

Essentially we’re recreating the entire forward fuselage to just aft of frame 14, which is just before the front spar at fr15/16. This will encompass all the main crew positions (Bomb Aimer/Front Gunner, 1st and 2n Pilot’s, Nav, W/Op and Flt Eng).

Quite a sizeable chunk of aircraft!

John

March 18, 2024 at 6:25 pm in reply to: Stirling Project Update #740702

12jaguar
Participant

Hi all

I can assure you that lots was done this Saturday although you’d be hard to spot it in the attached photos. The keels are moving slowly forwards, with all of the lower attachment holes drilled out to 5/32″, this is evidenced by having the yellow gripper pins replaced by blue. The doubler holes have been opened out as well.

With only myself and Graham on site it meant we were a bit limited although Graham has started stripping down bomb door hinges ready for mounting on the keels.

Our good friend Sorin from Amada UK dropped by to give us a laser cut Stirling silhouette to mount as a sign outside the workshop. Have to say it really looks the part.

Till next

John

March 12, 2024 at 8:15 pm in reply to: Stirling Project Update #740978

12jaguar
Participant

It’s difficult to tell from the remnants and the Vol 3 doesn’t give any clues. It’s non-structural so we’ve gone with pine for cheapness and practicality. It might have originally been spruce but that would probably have been overkill for where it is

John

March 12, 2024 at 5:04 pm in reply to: Stirling Project Update #740987

12jaguar
Participant

Thanks guys. There’s a surprising amount of wood in the structure and thankfully a lot of it has survived to use as patterns

John

March 11, 2024 at 5:19 pm in reply to: Stirling Project Update #741049

12jaguar
Participant

Hi all, a one step forward, one step backwards kind of weekend.

First off, we’ve had some wood (yes wood) delivered for the bomb bay structure. This is an important part as although it can barely be seen once the structure is complete it acts as a seal which the bomb doors close on to. Additionally for our purposes it also will act as the structure support and will help take the weight of the fuselage on the jig.

Aside from that it was a case of fettling parts to fit and also more drilling of the stbd keel girder. The latter photos give an indication of the length of the bomb bay. This will of course need to be repeated for the port side, but hopefully this will be quicker to replicate

John
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