As of April 2nd, 2006 here is the work done on the fuselage over the last 6 months. Sorry it took so long but in those 6 months I bought a C310 twin Cessna and flew it home from Princeton NJ., got my multi-eng rating, flew the T-28 occasionally and did it's yearly condition inspection, had family in town for the holidays, worked almost 40 hours every week and spent a little time with my wife. With all that said now I'm going to pick up the pace a little more...
Here is the original "C" fuselage as delivered in March 2005.
The Oxygen tank bulkhead will need replacing.
The bottom parts of the tailhook where it hangs out the bottom of the fuselage.
All the fuselage skins were removed and will be replaced with new sheets.
This will also allow complete inspection for corrosion and replacement of stringers etc that are worn out or bent. Remember the plane was built in Sept 1944!
The internal ORIGINAL tailhook components and bracing.
Now the entire structure has been striped to the bare metal. No paint remains and where you see spots of green paint indicated the parts will be removed and replaced with new parts.
Another view. It looks brand new!!
Here's why a COMPLETE GROUND UP RESTORATION is needed. This part has severe inner-granular corrosion. Things like this that are hidden in old airplanes are what causes catastrophic failure.
Here is the part removed. Fortunately the area around this part was unaffected. This type of corrosion was probably caused by bad heat treatment of the metal during manufacturing in 1944.
Now that all repairs are done the entire structure gets an acid bath and scrubbing and then an alodine conversion coating. This will greatly inhibit corrosion for a very long time. Probably much longer that the original 62 years already on the airframe.
Now that it is prepped for paint, the entire structure gets an epoxy corrosion preventive primer.
New skins are hand made from 2024 T-3 aluminum sheets ranging from .025 to .032 in thickness. The old skins, when possible, will be used as a template to fabricate the new ones. All those things sticking up are called cleco's. Each one is in a hole that a rivet will need to be installed in.
Another side panel skin. The different color of cleco indicates a specific size of rivet.
Each skin is etched and alodined to prep it for primer/paint.
The tail wheel box skins are installed and the larger skins are cleco'd into position. Remember each one of those gets a rivet
Here is the rear tailhook bumper as it's test fit to the new skins. This is what the tailhook rests against when it is in the up position.
after about 1400 rivets, the bottom skin, and 3 side skins on each side are riveted in place. Next is the top 2 turtle deck skins to close it up.
View from the front.
Looking down inside. Notice the skins are all primed with the corrosion preventive primer BEFORE they are installed. That way corrosion should not start between 2 pieces of metal. This is what is truly called a "Ground Up" restoration !
Here are the last 2 original side skins to make. They will fit on the front sides in the above pic. The 2 turtle deck skins are in the background, already made and ready for test fit prior to alodine and primer.
Ok, so thats it as of Sunday, April 2nd, 2006. I'll update the pics when the entire fuse is done. For now I'm going to go watch some TV with Carol, I think she's still here!!!