P-51D Cockpit Project

Arguably the finest fighter aircraft of World War II.
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geedee
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Re: P-51D Cockpit Project

Post by geedee »

So, where are we in the build ?....hmmmm, lets see. Right, got a firewall, two fuselage sides and a floor... what's needed next is a rear bulkhead to give the four sides of a box and the then some internal strength in the addition of some longerons.

Marking out the rear bulkhead was a no-brainer reaslly so I wont spend any time on that peice. what did cause me some head scratching was the longerons.

You'll know that the '51 fuselage is basically built around four longerons....two that the cockpit floor sat on and a further two at just under shoulder height. As I think I've allready said, as I wasn't building below the floor, I only really needed the top two longeron sections. And here's where the problems started. Surprisingly, I wasn't able to ring my local supplier and get some 'sent over, so after much time spent on the web trying to track down some original 'stock' longerons, I came up with the following advice.....don't bother trying to get the real stuff, cos its a, hideously expensive (I'm talking telephone number per foot !!) and b, even if you can track some time expired stuff, the owners are reluctant to then N'th degree to part with it for fear of law suits and what-haveyous !.

Now thats great, but doesn't really help out so what to do ?. In the end I went to a metal supplier / scrap yard and had a good old look around his scrap pile and finally chanced upon some C section ali extrusion. Hang on a minute....you can't use a C section cos the top longeron is H shaped with the top out 'lip' canted in at an angle. Actually, you can !. I figured that if I used the C section and made a sleeve to blank off the open part of the extrusion on the cockpit interior side, it'd be pefectly Ok. Now I know this sounds a bit daft, but if you look inside a '51 at the top longeron, realistically you see a flat vertical surface and not the actual profile.

Game on !

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A trip to my local ali sheet supplier and a week later I came home with two sleeves , cut and folded to the sample I'd provided. I couldn't make this sleeve as I neeeded access to a 6 foot folder (they have a 12 foot one and its a beauty :-)). I was now in the position to start to learn how to rivet.

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You have no idea the fear I had when it came to drilling the very first hole for a rivet in a pristine sheet of ali !. I measured, I checked, I measured, I checked, I checked again, then walked off for a few minutes as I didn't want to spoil the sheet by putting a hole where there shouldn't be one. However, I eventually ran out of excuses and made the first hole... that broke the ice and from then on it vwasn't too long before I had everything all jigged up together and ready for rivetting

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Now when it comes to rivetting countersunk rivetes, I learnt a lot in the first few minutes. Some top tips worth remembering....get a buddy who you can rely on to help with either running the rivet gun or driving the rivet dolly. Cut your rivets to size before using. and the big one here... don't use a high PSI on the compressor or the rivet hammer /gun will wazz off across your sheet of ali before you know it and make a heap of marks where you don't want them !. I finally settled on a around 70PSI at the gun wich gave enough 'ooomph' to drive the gun but enough control to feed the power in instead blasting away at full tilt !.

Last pic for the day and just to prove that I'm not just building a 'pit to sit in, heres the current sound system installed under my seat with the bass woofer providing loads of vibration directly under my 'rsend' and the five satellite speakers diecting their output straight up the armor plate to my ears (read, deafening !! :-))

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Cheers

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Gary

trucker17
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Re: P-51D Cockpit Project

Post by trucker17 »

geedee wrote:So, where are we in the build ?....hmmmm, lets see. Right, got a firewall, two fuselage sides and a floor... what's needed next is a rear bulkhead to give the four sides of a box and the then some internal strength in the addition of some longerons.

Marking out the rear bulkhead was a no-brainer reaslly so I wont spend any time on that peice. what did cause me some head scratching was the longerons.

You'll know that the '51 fuselage is basically built around four longerons....two that the cockpit floor sat on and a further two at just under shoulder height. As I think I've allready said, as I wasn't building below the floor, I only really needed the top two longeron sections. And here's where the problems started. Surprisingly, I wasn't able to ring my local supplier and get some 'sent over, so after much time spent on the web trying to track down some original 'stock' longerons, I came up with the following advice.....don't bother trying to get the real stuff, cos its a, hideously expensive (I'm talking telephone number per foot !!) and b, even if you can track some time expired stuff, the owners are reluctant to then N'th degree to part with it for fear of law suits and what-haveyous !.

Now thats great, but doesn't really help out so what to do ?. In the end I went to a metal supplier / scrap yard and had a good old look around his scrap pile and finally chanced upon some C section ali extrusion. Hang on a minute....you can't use a C section cos the top longeron is H shaped with the top out 'lip' canted in at an angle. Actually, you can !. I figured that if I used the C section and made a sleeve to blank off the open part of the extrusion on the cockpit interior side, it'd be pefectly Ok. Now I know this sounds a bit daft, but if you look inside a '51 at the top longeron, realistically you see a flat vertical surface and not the actual profile.

Game on !

Image

A trip to my local ali sheet supplier and a week later I came home with two sleeves , cut and folded to the sample I'd provided. I couldn't make this sleeve as I neeeded access to a 6 foot folder (they have a 12 foot one and its a beauty :-)). I was now in the position to start to learn how to rivet.

Image

You have no idea the fear I had when it came to drilling the very first hole for a rivet in a pristine sheet of ali !. I measured, I checked, I measured, I checked, I checked again, then walked off for a few minutes as I didn't want to spoil the sheet by putting a hole where there shouldn't be one. However, I eventually ran out of excuses and made the first hole... that broke the ice and from then on it vwasn't too long before I had everything all jigged up together and ready for rivetting

Image

Now when it comes to rivetting countersunk rivetes, I learnt a lot in the first few minutes. Some top tips worth remembering....get a buddy who you can rely on to help with either running the rivet gun or driving the rivet dolly. Cut your rivets to size before using. and the big one here... don't use a high PSI on the compressor or the rivet hammer /gun will wazz off across your sheet of ali before you know it and make a heap of marks where you don't want them !. I finally settled on a around 70PSI at the gun wich gave enough 'ooomph' to drive the gun but enough control to feed the power in instead blasting away at full tilt !.

Last pic for the day and just to prove that I'm not just building a 'pit to sit in, heres the current sound system installed under my seat with the bass woofer providing loads of vibration directly under my 'rsend' and the five satellite speakers diecting their output straight up the armor plate to my ears (read, deafening !! :-))

Image
You seat is very much like mine.....Except for me useing enclosed 6X9 3way car spekers, that i mounted behind the rear bulkhead.
I am also useing all 4 walls as the computer screens for the 4 old Sears projection TV cameras.....P.S.All other speakers are located in various places around the cockpit....
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Lewis - A2A
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Re: P-51D Cockpit Project

Post by Lewis - A2A »

Awesome work Gary. Thank you for sharing it here, I know I'm not alone in really enjoying seeing these cockpits all come together 8)
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geedee
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Re: P-51D Cockpit Project

Post by geedee »

trucker17 wrote: You seat is very much like mine.....Except for me useing enclosed 6X9 3way car spekers, that i mounted behind the rear bulkhead.
I am also useing all 4 walls as the computer screens for the 4 old Sears projection TV cameras.....P.S.All other speakers are located in various places around the cockpit....

Sound interesting...watchya building ?. The seat I'm using ....well, more to follow on that one later...is quite a popular one in the cockpit building fraternity. I'd love to have bigger (read unfeasably large !!) speakers but as I'm limited to the confines of the '51 pit, I can't. I will however be moving them from under the seat very soon. Stay tooned :-)
Lewis - A2A wrote:Awesome work Gary. Thank you for sharing it here, I know I'm not alone in really enjoying seeing these cockpits all come together 8)

Cheers Lewis, much appreciated. For info, her first outing this year is planned to be at the home of the 357th Fighter Group at Leiston, over the May Bank Holiday for their Memorial Service. There are some very famous names that flew with the 'Yoxford Boys' !. And as its almost on you doorstep, would be great to meet up, let you have a go and raise a few cold ones to the ghosts. PM me if you can make it and I'll drop you details.

OK, onwards and upwards. We are now getting to the stage where she's starting to almost get that iconic chape. but things are still a bit flimsy. What we need is ribs !

Making the ribs is easy...says he who threw the first lot away in an industrial strength sulk when they all warped. Aluminum is a very forgiving medium but remember that every time you hit it, it stretches a bit...then it warps a bit, so you try and tap out the kinks and it bends even more, so you end using a bigger hammer and it just goes downhill from there on in !. Think before you do anything !!. After much cussing I decided to make a second set but out of 2mm thick ali instead of the 1.5mm materiel I'd been using. Start off by making a wooden rib to the dimensions needed...but remember to allow for the thickness of the ali you are using !... then make a copy of the first one. You will later clamp your ali between these two to help make the final shape and profile

The top tip of the day for making ribs is that once you've cut out the ali, BEFORE you try and clamp between your two wooden rins to 'tap' the ends over, make your intenal folds first. All the ribs in the '51 that have an inwards face are all bent at 90' degrees. By making this fold in the metal folder, you impart a huge amount of torsional rigidity into the ali and then its fairly easy to clamp over your woodedn ones to fold over the curved area. Then, when you're all set, get your buddy over to help and rivet them in place. I was astonished at how strong it made the cockpit tub...heck I even fooloishly said I'd be happy to fly in it it felt that strong !!

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With the internal ribs in place I was the able to make up the mounting brackets for the rudder pedal assembly and get that installed

Image

Then it was time to call it a day and trundle her into the shed / hangar (I now call it my shangar :)). Once inside, I put the seat I'd acquired and the wooden mockup of the instrument panel in place to see how she was shaping up.

Image

The following day as it was sunny, I sprayed the whole 'shootin match' the same color and was quite please how she was starting to look.

Image
Cheers

Image

Gary

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Lewis - A2A
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Re: P-51D Cockpit Project

Post by Lewis - A2A »

Oh hell yes, you got yourself a deal there. (fingers crossed for nice weather) pint in the sun with good company, you cant beat it 8)
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Cylon
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Re: P-51D Cockpit Project

Post by Cylon »

Absolutely crazy project you're working on! :shock: Love it, wish you all the best!!
Image

trucker17
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Re: P-51D Cockpit Project

Post by trucker17 »

geedee wrote:
trucker17 wrote: You seat is very much like mine.....Except for me useing enclosed 6X9 3way car spekers, that i mounted behind the rear bulkhead.
I am also useing all 4 walls as the computer screens for the 4 old Sears projection TV cameras.....P.S.All other speakers are located in various places around the cockpit....

Sound interesting...watchya building ?. The seat I'm using ....well, more to follow on that one later...is quite a popular one in the cockpit building fraternity. I'd love to have bigger (read unfeasably large !!) speakers but as I'm limited to the confines of the '51 pit, I can't. I will however be moving them from under the seat very soon. Stay tooned :-)
Lewis - A2A wrote:Awesome work Gary. Thank you for sharing it here, I know I'm not alone in really enjoying seeing these cockpits all come together 8)

Cheers Lewis, much appreciated. For info, her first outing this year is planned to be at the home of the 357th Fighter Group at Leiston, over the May Bank Holiday for their Memorial Service. There are some very famous names that flew with the 'Yoxford Boys' !. And as its almost on you doorstep, would be great to meet up, let you have a go and raise a few cold ones to the ghosts. PM me if you can make it and I'll drop you details.

OK, onwards and upwards. We are now getting to the stage where she's starting to almost get that iconic chape. but things are still a bit flimsy. What we need is ribs !

Making the ribs is easy...says he who threw the first lot away in an industrial strength sulk when they all warped. Aluminum is a very forgiving medium but remember that every time you hit it, it stretches a bit...then it warps a bit, so you try and tap out the kinks and it bends even more, so you end using a bigger hammer and it just goes downhill from there on in !. Think before you do anything !!. After much cussing I decided to make a second set but out of 2mm thick ali instead of the 1.5mm materiel I'd been using. Start off by making a wooden rib to the dimensions needed...but remember to allow for the thickness of the ali you are using !... then make a copy of the first one. You will later clamp your ali between these two to help make the final shape and profile

The top tip of the day for making ribs is that once you've cut out the ali, BEFORE you try and clamp between your two wooden rins to 'tap' the ends over, make your intenal folds first. All the ribs in the '51 that have an inwards face are all bent at 90' degrees. By making this fold in the metal folder, you impart a huge amount of torsional rigidity into the ali and then its fairly easy to clamp over your woodedn ones to fold over the curved area. Then, when you're all set, get your buddy over to help and rivet them in place. I was astonished at how strong it made the cockpit tub...heck I even fooloishly said I'd be happy to fly in it it felt that strong !!

Image

With the internal ribs in place I was the able to make up the mounting brackets for the rudder pedal assembly and get that installed

Image

Then it was time to call it a day and trundle her into the shed / hangar (I now call it my shangar :)). Once inside, I put the seat I'd acquired and the wooden mockup of the instrument panel in place to see how she was shaping up.

Image

The following day as it was sunny, I sprayed the whole 'shootin match' the same color and was quite please how she was starting to look.

Image
The seat i'm useing, is custom made....I took pictures and full measurements, from the F6F Hellcat that our museum owns....I got lucky and found it out of the aircraft during the planes restoration.....
As for the speakers....Like i said they are just cheap 6X9, 3 way, car stereo speakers....I had the Box enclosures and mounted them behind the seat in each corner of the cockpit....The enclosures are mounted from the back, on the outside of the cockpit....A trip to our local classic car show and swapmeet got the metal speaker covers,( painted a light OD to match the rest of the cockpit....).
The pedals were made from a mold i created useing the pedals from the F6F....The landing gear handel is a 3 way turn switch with a piece of tin tubing attached, and a wood ball on the end, the radio equipment is fully functional with the sims radio equipment, our headphones and throat microphones plug into the radio system....
We mounted 2 small projection cameras 1 on each side of the cockpit, and a projection screen to each side to show the wing, as you look out to the sides of the cockpit.....
The room we use is sectioned off into 2 areas, by a small wall built to allow a full 360 look around the cockpit....I cut an opening at height to the seated cockpit so me and my daughter can see eachother as we fly.....
The total cost for the room configuration with projectors, cameras, cockpits for 6 diffetant aircraft styles, including helos and multi engines, projector screens(4) speakers aound the room for each area, cost about 5,000.00 to complete.....Mind you this was done a little at a time....
Im, still trying to figure a way to add vibration to the cockpits for effect...
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geedee
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Re: P-51D Cockpit Project

Post by geedee »

The seat i'm useing, is custom made....I took pictures and full measurements, from the F6F Hellcat that our museum owns....I got lucky and found it out of the aircraft during the planes restoration.....
As for the speakers....Like i said they are just cheap 6X9, 3 way, car stereo speakers....I had the Box enclosures and mounted them behind the seat in each corner of the cockpit....The enclosures are mounted from the back, on the outside of the cockpit....A trip to our local classic car show and swapmeet got the metal speaker covers,( painted a light OD to match the rest of the cockpit....).
The pedals were made from a mold i created useing the pedals from the F6F....The landing gear handel is a 3 way turn switch with a piece of tin tubing attached, and a wood ball on the end, the radio equipment is fully functional with the sims radio equipment, our headphones and throat microphones plug into the radio system....
We mounted 2 small projection cameras 1 on each side of the cockpit, and a projection screen to each side to show the wing, as you look out to the sides of the cockpit.....
The room we use is sectioned off into 2 areas, by a small wall built to allow a full 360 look around the cockpit....I cut an opening at height to the seated cockpit so me and my daughter can see eachother as we fly.....
The total cost for the room configuration with projectors, cameras, cockpits for 6 diffetant aircraft styles, including helos and multi engines, projector screens(4) speakers aound the room for each area, cost about 5,000.00 to complete.....Mind you this was done a little at a time....
Im, still trying to figure a way to add vibration to the cockpits for effect...
Wow... would love to come and try it out sometime !. I'm hoping to cross the 'Pond' sometime in Aug but not sure yet where I'll be heading ( can't say any more yet cos its all hush-hush but will involve Warbirds :-))

Like you say, it sounds a lot but with the cash spread over 4 or 5 years, its actually very affordable to build a decent home set-up. Regarding vibration, yhave you thought of using bass shakers ?....bit like loudspeaker but instead of pushing out noise, they convert the sound input into low ferquency vibrations...have a look on the web for http://thebuttkicker.com/

Next on the list for my Babe was to mount the instrument panel. This has a top and bottom panel and once cut out and various bits bent, I was pleased to find that the instrument panel actually fitted in place with very little attention needed. Then, it was time to start on the trim concole that sits on the left hand side of the fuselage. At the moment, its made from MDF but I have plans to replace it later this year with an ali one that wil have internal mountings for the actual trim wheels, undercart lever, flap and carb controls. I also started to make some of the other panels and fit them to start making her look more like a fighter cockpit instead of a soap-box racer. None of these panels are hard to make...like eveything else, just take some time to mark it out on the ali, check everything then cut and bend to shape.

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About this time, I then had a look at the seat I'm using. Its not a '51 seat, its actually from a Westland Seaking chopper (very similar to the Sikorsky that was used to recover the Apollo command capsule from the sea. Its fairly close to the Warran- Mcarthur seat used in the Mustang but the seat back was about 9 inches too high !. No problemo. Seat !...meet my new bestest friend the angle grinder :-). I got the idea from when I went to the CAF Airsho back in 20085 and saw the jump seat form the CAF Red Nose 'Stang perched on the wing. It looked like a patchwork quilt so thought I could use the same idea for mine.
The section I cut out was then rivetted back in place as a patch and looks like a filed repair once painted up so I'm quite happy.

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I must apologise at this point as I'm rattling through the build without going into too much detail. If you guys have any particular questions on how I made / installed / built anything, please ask and I'll go into more detail for you.

Essentially, what Im trying to get over, is that building the '51 cockpit is very easy....no, it is !!!...and if I can get even just one of you to start to build one, I'll be very happy indeed. Beside which, you know it makes sense to sit in your own '51 when you launch the A2A sim :-)
Cheers

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Gary

TimP51
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Re: P-51D Cockpit Project

Post by TimP51 »

Great looking Mustang Gary! Any chance I could get some dimensions from you so I could start planning out my P-51 simpit build?

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Lewis - A2A
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Re: P-51D Cockpit Project

Post by Lewis - A2A »

Geedee's pit will be at Leiston tomorrow and I hope to be attending to meet geedee and show him exactly how one doesn't fly these aircraft :twisted:

will try to get some pics of this great pit in action
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MarcE
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Re: P-51D Cockpit Project

Post by MarcE »

o.O

maybe a dumb question... is there any way to get all those gauges and controls to work with FS? ok, the controls need servos like in a Joystick... but the gauges? Are there systems that calculate the values of FS and "move" the gauges? I mean, the gauges look like they were real ones or are they actually done for FS?`If they are real they need to be moved by air pressure, gyros and so on... is that possible to fake???

absolutely... outstanding... wow!

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Jacques
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P-51D Cockpit Project

Post by Jacques »

Marc,

That is a great question, one that I've been wondering about as well!
JP

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Lewis - A2A
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Re: P-51D Cockpit Project

Post by Lewis - A2A »

It was great meeting Gary 'geedee' at the memorial event this past weekend at Leiston. So very rare that we get such a beautiful day for a bank holiday weekend so it was great fun in the sun and a good day to be at such a moving event. Although there where technical hitches preventing the PC from working with the cockpit it was just amazing to be able to see the cockpit in progress. Though even in its current state it is a work of art. Absolutely stunning and thank you to Gary to letting me have a go!

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geedee
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Re: P-51D Cockpit Project

Post by geedee »

Lewis - A2A wrote:It was great meeting Gary 'geedee' at the memorial event this past weekend at Leiston. So very rare that we get such a beautiful day for a bank holiday weekend so it was great fun in the sun and a good day to be at such a moving event. Although there where technical hitches preventing the PC from working with the cockpit it was just amazing to be able to see the cockpit in progress. Though even in its current state it is a work of art. Absolutely stunning and thank you to Gary to letting me have a go!

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No worries Lewis. You did leave with a silly grin, even though the PC had gone tech...wait till you try her when she's working !!. And likewise, was good to finally meet up. I'll deffo keep you updated regarding future visits up your neck of the woods...we need a chat over a few beers !!...and please feel free to add any other pics.

MarcE, good question. The instruments are all original and as yet, nope, they don't work on the computer. My initial plan is to probably go down the route of getting a second complete set and gutting the insides, install modern flight sim instrument internals but use the original face plates and pointers. This will be a very expensive route at nearly £150. per instrument so I may take a different path. Not sure yet but I'll update as things progress :-)

I do have huge problems with my home computer at the moment so can't provide a decent update plus pic's. Looks like I have to replace the bl**dy thing which is something I could really do without !!!. I'm working on it so please bear with me
Cheers

Image

Gary

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geedee
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Re: P-51D Cockpit Project

Post by geedee »

Apologies for the delay in the updates chaps, been busy workwise and have had a few problems with the home IT.

After sorting out the seat into something that resembles a '51 seat, I turned my attention to the upper bodywork in front of and around the windshield area.

The first part was quite easy to mark out and cut to size and install. The eagle eyed amongst you will pick up that this single sheet is currently held in with rivets whereas it should be by a number of 'twist 'n' lock's. I don't have any of those bad boys at the moment but when I do get some, its an easy matter to install where the rivets are.

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Then came the fun part...namely the panels that go up from the side and curve around in front of the windshield. These two panels are the only ones with compound curves in the whole build to date... and they are little b*gg*rs to get right. Measuring and marking out on the ali was quite easy (once I'd deciphered what was relevant from the drawing...thats a polite version !) and then out with the trusty jigsaw and drill and place them on the sides.

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That was the easyish part. Its amazing the amount of pressure you need to bend 2mm ali....it's bl**dy hard work !!!. Then I found a great new use for transport straps :-)
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Then it was a rapid case of going around with the skin-pins to hold it all together.
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About this time I had to stop working for a few weeks so she was put back in the Shangar.
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More to follow later this weekend :-)
Cheers

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Gary

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