Geedee's P-51D Cockpit Project

[Airframes]

Great stuff Gary. I'm a bit surprised you're not going to use that beaut panel you made - I would have thought the radiation and other risks were minimal, given the relative time you/anyone would be exposed. Seems a shame to ditch it.

[evangilder]

Looking good, Gary.

[ccheese]

Been following this, Gary, but not saying much. You've done and awesome job, can't wait to see it "fly".

Charles

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Excellent work Gary!! Your craftsmanship is spot on sir!

[Tony Hill]

Gary, I'm with you on the instruments. If you are in any doubt (different instruments have vastly different risk), get yourself one of those cheap Dosimeters off ebay and put it over them. You will find that anything with intact glass and no external radium paint is quite low and probably perfectly safe(??) but things with even tiny external markers (British boost gauge, triple brake gauge etc with the "maimum triangles" ) are just as bad as the compass, which personally I won't spend any significant time with 3 yards of!

The pit is looking t1ts mate!!!



Darryl



When you come to making your "picture" instruments, give me a yell as I have a lot of experience making 3d guages and can give you the details to make them look almostas good as the real thing.

[CONNOCHR]

I agree, I won't ditch the original gauges just yet as it adds so much to the attention to detail. I have access to a good radiation meter that a friend uses for work, I'll grab it from him and test my panel to give you an idea. Plus unless you plan on storing the cockpit in your bedroom I think the exposure you have will be so minimal that it wouldn't be an issue. I've been told that granite counter tops will set off a radiation detector and people are around them everyday and eat off of them....just my opinion, right or wrong.

[T Bolt]

[CONNOCHR]

Great info Glenn, Gary I hope you read this before you throw out your gauges, that would be a shame. Important points made by the expert is that if its a sealed gauge there is virtually no danger at all and only if you " licked the open face of the gauge" you might have a problem. That makes me feel better and hopefully everyone else. Another note, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, I heard Russia still uses radium paint on some of their aircraft gauges.

-Chris

[Rocketeer]

I have seen exposed radium on the throttle handle of Mig 21 and 15. The oxy reg of P51/F86/P47 delete as reqd, has radium on the emergency switch handle and also on the other selector dots. I have just made a faceplate for mine.
I should have added treat it with respect and it will do likewise!

[Geedee]

Darryl, those instruments look bl**dy good mate, you should be impreesed with how they've turned out !.

Chris, Terry, I've decided to keep the 'full monty' panel as I can always put the flat repro in, in about 2 minutes work, so I've really got the best of both worlds.

Apart from wednesday, I've been off work all week working pretty solidly on the '51, and have managed to get some stuff done.

I stripped the firewall down and replaced the L shaped ali from three bits into one continuous piece that has strengthened it quite a bit. Took best part of a day to do, having to reverse engineer the bolt holes in the new ali to line up with the holes on the firewall. All those bleedin' bolts . Then I introduced my son to the delights of rivetting while he helped my rivet the firewall onto the cockpit tub. He did pretty good.

I then had a look at my instrument panel, stripped it down, took a deep breath and then got the jigsaw out for a play. End result was a ruddy great big hole in the middle of the panel where the AH and the sperry go. Made up some mounting plates to fill the hole then resprayed the panel and added the yellow '6 pack lines, then got impatient and took the masking off before the paint had hardened, smudged the yellow, swore a bit...OK a lot ! (threw Teddy right out of the cot !) and packed up for the day.

I've also clad the rear bulkhead in Ali at last so it looks less like a tea-chest holding the back together and have now got to think of a way to finish off the sides of the rear bulkhead (hide the wood).

Resprayed the panel this morning...and the black spray can had a moment. All over my hand it did. You ever tried scrapping off paint that dont wanna be scrapped off ?. I'm off to work tommorrow wearing a Michael Jackson glove to hide the mess...teehee. Went into town to get some replacement machine screws and the supplier had none in stock. A*rse !. So came back home and put everything together with nice shiny bright slotted screws that are waay too long and are totally wrong for the '51 but will do until I can get replacements.

Next on the agenda is to make a start on the top instrument surround panel, then I can finally mount the panel with resorting to bribing my son to hold it place while I sit in the 'pit andf dream

[Airframes]

Looks fantastic Gary, bl**dy marvellous job mate. I did notice the placard about canopy jettison is missing one line of text though.It should have a bottom line which reads "And clinch a*se cheeks as tightly as possible"!!

[Gnomey]

Coming along nicely Gary!

[Rocketeer]

good stuff Gaz!!! hope it will fit thru the fence!!!!

[T Bolt]

Good work Gary, the panel looks great!!
Maybe you can bend an aluminum angle for a trim strip at the rear bulkhead. I managed to finish the 47's floor today except for an angle trim strip to hide some plywood. kinda sounds familiar huh? Might post some pics tonight.

[Tony Hill]

That is looking superb Gary. I envy you a week to work on it.

Racing along now mate, can't wait for more pics.