Ye Olde P40 Shop Photos

[jmoore]

Found these pictures whilst moving stuff about the reloading room.

(See this thread for the mess: Aieeee!!! This is progress? )

Just a few reminders of the madness back in the late '90s. This P40 late won the Phoenix award at Oshkosh. I reckon it's still flying. Everything you see on the fuselage tail subassembly was made new. The firewall was also all new except for the engine mounts and the plumbing pass through plate. I primarily made attach fittings and tooling, but I also got into some of the sheet metal forming and riveting.


Just noticed that there's two tail subassemblies in this photo! And a chunk of old forward upper fuselage in the right background sitting on a couple of stools. Lower firewall is on left foreground and the upper dominates the right foreground. Upper fuselage jig in back of the firewall jigs.





John Hassard looking at the "just pulled out of the assembly jig" fuselage tail subassembly.
The armor plate on the floor was original.

Information

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[Peter Laidler]

Are these P-40's your speciality JM? Did you see that one was found almost intact in the Egyptian desert recently.

Restoration of these things fascinate me. Brilliant work. Will you explain the mechanics of those copper un-rivetted sort of pop-rivets that seem to be in the tail part. Have often seen then but......

[Garandy]

Peter, I know I'm not JMoore so I hope I am not stepping on anyone’s toes with this answer. I will venture a guess that you are referring to the nine (that I can see) "Cleco" fasteners that are installed in the tail in the last picture. Clecos are a temporary way to hold pieces of sheet metal (and other things) together. They come in a number of sizes and are generally installed and removed with a special tool that looks like a funny pair of pliers. This link is pretty basic but the pictures in it show what I'm talking about more quickly and concisely than I could type it up to explain it: Cleco pins - how to use ? - MIG Welding Forum

[jmoore]

...I hope I am not stepping on anyone’s toes with this answer.

Not at all! An excellent answer, and a good link.

We also used a non-spring loaded version that is slower to use but has wedging action built in. The downside to the "English pins" (that's where we bought them) is that they were anywhere from US$3 to US$6 apiece.! We had 2-300 between two of use. But Clecos we had by the bucketful! When I find more photos I will post them if anyone is interested.

Are these P-40's your speciality JM?

I suppose, but I was actually drawn in by a more or less penniless but mad enthusiast who started the "factory" by sheer willpower. He even named his son Curtiss. I had started messing with old airplanes seriously with the restoration of the N1K2 Shiden-kai that's in the US Navy's aviation museum in Pensacola, Florida

http://www.navalaviationmuseum.org/e...aft-on-display

(Click on the

N1K2-J Shiden Kai (GEORGE)

link in the first link above for a full descrpition.)


They aren't wrong about this being the best preserved of the surviving Shiden-kai. Even the markings were exactly duplicated that were on this aircaft as captured. We found out who flew it (A ten victory pilot who later flew for JAL), and discovered and tranlated the poem lightly scratched under the LH tailplane. We even had a woman who worked in the engine factory come by during the restoration- she was in high school at the time and more or less got "drafted" as a factory worker.

BTW: all the New England Air Museum did with the plane in the almost 20 years they had it was to de-rivet one wing and the horizontal, and do their best to lose the canopy and cannons. We had it from '93 to '94 and spent most of our time just reversing their mess. Not that I still get teeth grinding angry about it....

Dang, I miss that old N1K2! I slept inside it 2-3 days a week whilst I was working on it for about a year.