PBY Restoration

2010-05-16T18:58:00.000-07:00

Sorry I have not posted anything for a while but, I have not done any work on the cat. I am getting anxious to get back to it. The last month or two I have been in the Seattle area working on a Dassault Falcon 50 and a Hawker 800xp. I did really enjoy it and I think for now it will be two weeks on the Falcon and two weeks at home on the pby and rv7, unless there is a big inspection like we have had recently. Almost two months without any sheet metal work at all. It was nice. I did get off work smelling like jet a or hydraulic fluid though. Then the last day I was up there I got to fix some cherrymax rivets that worked out. Only four or five though. The pictures are not the actual airplanes I am working on because of owner privacy, just the same basic models. I am also wrapping up an annual inspection on my dads Cessna 182. Then June 3rd I am heading to visit my brother in York England. I will be gone for the most of June but I will get a chance to go to a couple air museums and also try to get a little bit of a break from fixing airplanes.

2010-04-04T10:54:00.000-07:00

Another PBY. Kind of the same shot over and over but, I wanted to show the air stair. It has a few minor differences from ours. Very nice looking airplane.

2010-03-29T05:12:00.000-07:00

Was able to do a little bit of work last week. Removed some of the interior angles to gain access to the bulkhead that needs to be repaired. I had Gary remove some rivets from the belly after much practice on parts that were headed to the junkyard. I also spent some time getting our 182 and rv7 in to the new hanger. Along with all the junk we managed to build up over the years. Five truck loads to the dump. Now I am back in Arlington Washington to work on the two jets. I did have some time to kill last night so I walked out on the ramp and took pictures of another PBY that I don't know much about. It has the old tail, looks like it has the bigger engines?, a little different nose, hardly any windows but it did have the old style blisters. The leading edge of the blisters look like they have been repaired with composite work.

2010-03-21T08:03:00.000-07:00

I have been in Arlington Washington working on a different airplane, working very hard to get an inspection done so the plane can go on a trip. So no work has been done on the PBY but, I did get a chance to stop at Skagit airport to look at another PBY that is sitting halfway through a restoration. Apparently funds ran out and the whole thing sounds like a disaster. When I was taking pictures a bird flew in a small hole in the cowling , I can only imagine what the inside of the airplane looks like.

2010-03-13T21:26:00.000-08:00

I wish that some of these posts were more entertaining or humorous but they do their job. Chip tirelessly working on our work steps so that we can get in and out of the plane without destroying the air stair. I think they started their lives as scaffolding stairs and with a few welds a few pieces of steel and some paint, they can now experience the glorious life of PBY stairs. Anyway, we got a Smithy machine last week and Gary made a nice step for us because most of us are short. Dean recommended that we go to a second-hand store and find some of those old disco platform shoes that had four or five inch platforms, after some discussion we decided that the stairs would suffice. Chip made a wood cover for the ways on the machine so that we can change the lathe chuck without damage to fingers or the machine. He also cleaned up a bunch of parts in the media blasting cabinet as well as using a scraper and other tools to clean up parts. I enthusiastically recommended some of the other parts that needed chemical paint stripping but no one ever seems to share my excitement. I kept busy drilling rivets out. Who would have guessed. Last week I found some more major corrosion and I am not going to go into it. Just need to take it one step at a time. Right now I am still in the discussion phase with the expert. We know more or less how it is going to be done but I have found that sometimes its best to see what else could possibly be thrown at us. I would go into it more but I am tired and I am going to the Seattle area tomorrow to work on a different aircraft. I suppose I could use the break from the cat and the expert assures me that the part I was drilling out will be there when I get back. Although Dean speaks of leprechauns or other short folk from the twilight zone that may do that type of work. I don't know, I give it fifty fifty. You never know with Dean. I have some great pictures of the ford tractor he is restoring also, so next chance I get I will get those up. And I found my camera after a week of looking. Maybe thats what the leprechauns do, I don't remember I will definitely get clarification from Dean.

2010-03-11T18:44:00.000-08:00

I did drill out rivets Sunday and today but I can't find my camera. It has a couple of pictures of rivets drilled out and the stairs that Chip painted on Sunday. Oh well, will add them when I find the camera. I would have done more except my Dad and I are moving our airplanes into a new hangar, and I worked on the rv-7 since I have barely done anything on it the last few weeks.

2010-03-05T23:13:00.000-08:00

Last week Dean took my on a tour of historic Barlow, OR. Hilarious , main street is a block long in between 1st and 2nd street which are not any longer. The tour consisted of driving down 1st to the fountain,
looking at the fountain and then leaving the foutain. The fountain does not work anymore.

This is Dean. Does that explain it a little better. He has an amazing bank of knowledge in that head of his, a little bit of that knowledge may be a little less than useful but, I love it and I am very glad to have him as a friend.

2010-03-05T22:59:00.000-08:00

Some old pictures of friends and such as well as a picture of my dad playing golf with Tom Watson. My dad beat him as Oswego Lake Country Club and my mom with Curtiss Strange and his wife. Oh and some of Baylee

2010-03-05T09:11:00.000-08:00

I found what the guys were using to set the rivets for the repairs 30 years ago. Ok, maybe I was just sharpening the ax to chop wood at home. The new shop for the 7 and 182 and the work I did yesterday. Riveting, cleaning and organizing the work shop and chopping wood. And last is the coolest sign I have seen. I need to figure out a way to make a copy or get a duplicate. The photo is cropped because there is a phone number at the bottom. The head on shot of the cat is awesome.

2010-03-04T22:54:00.000-08:00

At the top is my dads 182 that keeps us from rushing our project. Then Baylee guarding the old shop. A sukhoi su-29 that I did a little work on in exchange for two hours of aerobatic lessons from the owner who is an airshow performer. I really rubbed that in to my instructor. Bird strike when I was doing a night cross country. A chunk of bird came through the windshield. And a shot of the old shop, me priming parts for our airplane and a sunset from between the old hangars. We still have not moved out but I will be so glad to get out and into a clean warm large hangar that we can fit both planes in.

2010-03-04T22:29:00.000-08:00

We work on everything out there. This is Dean's ford tractor, and the coolest cessna 172 I have ever seen. He did the restoration and modifications himself, with some help from a good friend. They did incredible work on it and it has won many awards at fly-in's. Dean can fix anything and he does a good job doing it. I think after the annual on the 172 he is back to work on the restoration of his old ford econoline truck... always a project or two going on in that hanger and I rarely leave his shop without learning something. So many more pictures but its a pain to upload.

2010-03-03T21:38:00.000-08:00

  View of the skins off from the inside. The structure for the interior is really in the way and make it very hard to work in there. It also makes footing options difficult, the center strut is really the only sure thing and wherever you can get a foot on the beltframes. We do have temporary flooring that I am going to install but, that makes it hard to work on also. So maybe a 2x6? And walking
   inside I realize that if anyone slips they would surely destroy a stringer or two and then have the center frame or stringer or interior angle hit them right between the legs. Not fun.

RIVETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  This started because if I don't pick up the rivet heads then the stool and creeper will get stuck on them.

2010-03-03T21:12:00.000-08:00

Another example of some of the work that was done a long time ago. It looks like the rivet set they used was two sizes too small.

2010-03-03T21:06:00.000-08:00

Was finally able to get the other skin off. I was alone so I had to get creative so it didn't get any kinks. I used some stands and a stool to hold up the end while I pulled out the other end.

2010-02-28T21:44:00.000-08:00

This is what the interior looked like.

2010-02-28T18:57:00.000-08:00

Never would have guessed but I drilled rivets out today. I can't imagine what I will work on tomorrow. I find aluminum shavings everywhere. In my car, the house, bathroom, bedroom, other cars I ride in. After rolling around in it all day its in my clothes, shoes and hair. Last week I was at the driving range hitting balls and I looked down and there was a drilled out rivet head on the ground. Also had some help at the shop today. Everyone loves chemical paint stripping right? Maybe not. I don't think I took any pictures of what I did today so there is a picture of Buddy the airport dog chewing on my hat and running away from me.

2010-02-28T07:57:00.000-08:00

2010-02-28T07:51:00.000-08:00

The step was taken off yesterday. This first photo shows the way the front main keel was put together after the damage. Its far from the way way the structural repair or parts manual shows it. But Im trying not to get ahead of myself. The skin from station 5 to 7 is halfway drilled out and should be off today.

2010-02-23T18:52:00.000-08:00

Today we were able to get the keel out. It looks horrible. Enough said. I was glad to be home and done drilling out rivets. They should still be there tomorrow

2010-02-22T21:08:00.000-08:00

Some of the amazing work that was found after getting into it.

2010-02-22T20:57:00.000-08:00

Today I was able to get the step removed and after that the skin was able to slide out and off. Now I need to get the keel removed so we can install a new one. We have three or four extrusions that were made to specifications leftover from the tail repairs. The way our luck has been going we had them made twelve feet long and the piece being removed is around fifteen feet long. So the idea of making a splice according to the structural repair manual , but to go to all the trouble I think the best idea is to have the extrusion made to the correct length.

2010-02-21T22:19:00.000-08:00

A few pictures of some of the corrosion and other problems. I will try to post more pictures tomorrow. A friend took me to lunch in one of his creations , the Runamucka

2010-02-21T22:12:00.000-08:00

Finished drilling out the skin but there is sooo much sealant that it will not budge. So the step is going to have to be removed. Did everything we could to remove it with out drilling out the step but its going to have to happen. Someone had some gear problems on landing one day last week also. It doesnt look like there was a prop strike though.

2010-02-17T22:06:00.000-08:00

Soooo much drilling.

2010-02-17T21:38:00.000-08:00

Sunday was a little discouraging, found some problems with the keel and center strut area between station 5 and 7. Thats the section from the main gear to the air stair. Because of some of the previous problems in the forward keel, I noticed that someone had put a ton of sealant in the belly behind bulkhead 5 and 6. Sure enough there was inter-granular corrosion underneath a quarter inch of sealant. I dont have pictures of the damage because the battery in my camera died, but I did take a bunch on the shop camera and will upload them soon. I do have pictures of the result , drilling out the keel and the side cap. Eventually the port skin will be drilled off.