Spitfires MJ772 and MK923 (recently flyable – now in Museums in Oshkosh and Seattle respectivley).

I think Robants and Firebirds points are thought provoking. In quite a few instances these machines today really are ‘playthings’, albeit quite serious playthings. It is certainly not the case in every instance that they are restored and operated as memorials to the original wartime crews. This is not necceassarily a good thing but, at the end of the day, if the motivation to spend a great deal of money to restore a warbird comes purely from the desire to just fly and enjoy the thing I would guess few of us would object.

Steve, fantastic jacket – next time your over you should bring it with and re-unite it with Old Buckenham!

I have always used a drill of the same size as the rivet (1/8, 3/32 or whatever) but stopped drilling just short of the tail of the rivet so that I do not open up the holes in the skin. The head then snaps off with the application of the pin punch. I admit it takes accurate drilling to do this and you need to be drilling dead centre on the head.

In my own experience (reskinning C-130 flaps for Marshalls for 18 months) we usually found that chiselling dome head solid rivets would only work if the heads had already been weakened by drilling. As we were on piecework (bonus payment for job done quickly) the ‘old hands’ would just arm themselves with a heap of new drill bits, then drill into the rivet heads until reaching the point where the underside of the head would be. Then a quick flick of the wrist (so to speak) and the head would ping off onto the drill bit. One guy once tried air chiselling without predrilling but it took longer and made one one awful racket.

I use a parallel pin punch to remove SP85 or SP80 rivet heads instead of the drill (or chisel) as the heads stack up on your drill bit like a kebab and are a pain to remove!

Will do, GF! 🙂

An impossibly feathered prop maybe? Nice model all the same 😀

Its all that ‘Mustang Fan’ blokes fault!