Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Paint stripping and fuselage jigging...

The following is a picture sequence of the fuselage of 5Y-CMA being paint stripped, cleaned, and then placed into the fuselage jig. 

We put the fuselage onto some sawhorses and took the main landing gear legs off so that we wouldn't get paint stripper on them. 

Me and Caleb...I sorta look scared or something. 

The paint stripping crew.  L to R is Andy Keller, Tim Carpenter (other side of the plane), David Akivega, and Caleb.  This was a neat picture due to the "half paint" scheme. 

Carpenter and Akivega.

They laid the whole thing over onto it's side to facilitate easier paint stripping on the belly and roof. 

It sorta looked like a fish swimming sideways. 

Drying outside the hangar after a good pressure wash.  DC-3 and King Air 200 in the back. 

Now the dance...we had a fun time getting it into the jig.  It was sorta like parallel parking an airplane. 

We stuck the tail in first as far as possible and then side-walked the fuselage into the jig.  It actually worked pretty good and saved a lot of time because the jig was already built and we didn't have to wait until after paint stripping to build it around the airplane. 

Ahhhh, got it in.  (sigh of relief)

There she sits...now we can start diving into some of the work. 

Carpenter...the master of the jig. 

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