January '10 review

Sunday 3-1-10
Cold one up there today! Had to defrost the prop blades before we could paint them, but, we got some of the white bits painted..

Before we started:

After:

 

13.01.10

Couldn't do a great deal today due to the snow but, I did get the battery back in situ. Also, we've had some, fairly severe, leakage throught he cockpit windows so I've hilighted where it's coming in and, when it dries up, I'll scrape the old sealant out and re-do it. I've put bags of the cat litter type stuff, where the water is landing so hopefully it will keep the damp away.
the Snow Guppy:

Sunday 17.01.10
Started t'other side today, did as much orange as I could before I ran out of paint, so a trip to B&Q is on the cards during the week.

We also got more electrical sytems working again. We think we've just about re-connected everything now, there doesn't seem to be any reason why we can't draw power from the GPU. Hopefully, we'll be allowed to use the thing soon and test it.

Cleaned up the water that the silica bags didn't soak up in the cockpit, and in the cargo hold under the gap in the main door.

20.01.10

Ian came out to play today!!

So I set him to work!!! He managed to get all the green off the port side, outer prop. (Only the bottom 2 blades, ALL of the hydraulic steps seem to have vanished) This gave me the opportunity to paint them.

Before, with Ian hard at work:

After:

Whilst I was painting, Ian made a start on bending a load of metal. There are a load of puncture wounds, all over the aircraft. Dickon has measured them all and is having some aluminium cut to patch them. Ian went round bending the flared metal back into the fuselage so we can patch the holes, as and when.

27-1-10
Wet weather prevented any painting so Gaz did a spot of external cleaning where the rain couldn’t reach

After he didn't really make much difference with the cleaning, Gaz went for a brew and got talking to James (Lad at brunty who, (he thinks), owns most of the stuff up there) and he said we could have something quite handy.
Meet the newest member of our team:

Then Gaz clambered into the nose and started playing with different fuses and look what he did.....
 

 
So after a potential washout , Gaz left with a set of working lights, that’s the sort of result that he could do with more often

31-1-10

Gaz made new gust locks (Look at the state of the old ones):

We spent about half an hour positioning the new steps before Dave offered the use of the cherry picker. So up we went:
  
We assessed the damage:

The hinge cover had been completely blown out and bent. This was preventing the rudder from moving. So I set to removing it for restoration:

Got it off, but, it would appear we either need hydraulic pressure to move the rudder OR one of the actuators has been damaged, either way, I couldn't move it. Plus side is though, we know it won't be flapping about in the wind.

At least we have our new steps by the aircraft now.

Dickon also prepped a couple of aluminium patches for the puncture wounds on the fuselage.

Have you ever seen the Guppy from this angle?

30-1 – the project has (thanks to the efforts of Danforth) made the pages of Propliner magazine with an article by Ralph Petterson

that's all for this month . hopefully the weather will be kind during February and more progress will be possible. If you would like to contribute to the project please visit the wish list