Buckerooooo...

Time to buck the body shell to the new bellywrap and C channel.

Tim's skills are suited to more delicate equipment (he's an excellent sound recordist) but he volunteered to help buck a few rivets; complete with protective headgear (not sure if that's to protect from falling objects or preserve anonymity).

Of course he got the comfy end of the bucking...

... while I got the short straw.

But at least being on the backside, you get to control the crumpling of the rivet's tail. I found the most useful 'bucking bar' was a small heavy piece of Tungsten Steel; despite its size it was enough to absorb most of the blows and crumple the tail nicely. Though where there was more room this combined with the head of a 15lb railwayman's hammer helped save my knuckles.

... you just have to trust the man with the gun isn't putting smiley faces on the heads or the skin.

Luckily he did a perfect job (of course!).

... which is more than can be said of his rivet storage !

The skin fitted pretty snugly against the bellywrap.

But there was just enough room for a bead of Vulkem (or TremPro 636, as its now called - from Vintage Trailer Supplies ) - sticky stuff that gets everywhere !

Vintage Trailer Supplies have recently started to stock solid 5/32 rivets too. They are in a soft aluminium which cuts and bucks easily.

I'd ordered the longer ones and even without proper rivet cutters, found they trim nicely with some sharp snips.

... without leaving a burr or distorting the shank of the rivet.

Choices, choices...

So I had the choice of hard (AD) rivets from Aircraft Spruce or the softer ones from Vintage Trailer Supplies. Having drilled out all of the original rivets I'm pretty sure the original Airstream ones were closer to those from VTS and the some of the harder ones from AS had lettering on their heads.

So the compromise was to use the harder rivets along the ends where the rivets are hidden by the trim strip and the softer ones along the sides where they're more visible.

Outside, where it matters...

... and inside where it doesn't.

You can see the gold colour of the coating on the harder rivets (it polishes off easily). You can also see the wobbly path of Airstream's original rivet line !  While its tempting to drill a straighter line, it seems pointless to make more holes as they'll all be hidden by the trim, so we stuck with the wonky old ones.

And a big thanks also to Kelvin (who works with Pete Ritchie at Vintage American Trailer Co ) for stepping into Tim's shoes and bucking the rest of the rivets - its one of those jobs that really does need good teamwork. I'll catch him on camera next time.

The old gal, looking good and strong enough for at least another 50 years on the road...

Now to begin work on the inside... wiring, insulation and then new Zolatone.

... hurrah !

Whole again...

Pete had fitted the last two bellywrap sheets and flipped the chassis right-side-up (cheers, Pete). Now it was time to drill out those temporary pop-rivets, fit the last few bolts holding the frame supports & buck the bellywrap ends to the C channel... before reuniting the shell & chassis.

I'd marked the position of the frames supporting the body-shell and used a short section of right-angled aluminium which was bolted through the floor and outrigger, leaving an upright to rivet the frame end to.

I'd decided bolt up through the floor (rather than down) which made things a lot easier. Rather than bend the bolt ends to stop the nuts loosening I added a Nyloc locking nut on top of the normal nut.

Along with the Clecos, I found the Cleco spring clamps incredibly useful.

Surprisingly powerful for their size, they're perfect for clamping the wrap to the C channel before riveting.

A selection of rivets from Aircraft Spruce - all 5/32 AD (hard aluminium) but in different lengths.

The shortest was perfect for 2 sheets - wrap and C channel.

A small tungsten bucking bar was easiest to use and despite its size gives very little recoil.

And as a novice 'bucker' it was a good way to learn as you can see both sides of the rivet, feather the trigger on the gun & watch the rivet end fatten, flatten & lock the sheets together.

Before we tried to reunite the two halves it there was a lot of dried Vulkem on the lower, inside edges of the skin. A scrape with a putty knife and a light sanding (one area we're not going to polish) gave us a clean and keyed alloy surface that should slip over the bellywrap and bond to a new bead of Vulkem.

It dawned on me that I'd never taken the obligatory shot; standing on the ground inside the trailer clutching a optimistic bottle of beer - no beer to hand so my best James Bond 0.032, License to Buck !

One new toy - Einhell Air Shear.

Makes very light work of cutting shapes out of sheets.

The 1953 FC didn't have a steel plate at the front of the trailer, as later models do. Instead it had a larger aluminium sheet running up the inside of the skin.

I used it to cover the front frame & make a neat exit for the twin gas lines.

All ready to go...

Just a quick cup of tea (...its the law in Britain) before lining the two halves up.

I can't say the shell just slipped on like a knife though butter - it took a lot of 'up-a-bit, down-a-bit' and teasing the skin outside the wrap while keeping the frames inside. We got the rear on first and worked our way forward - thin putty knives are very useful to stop the sheets catching. But with a little gentle persuasion they eventually fitted perfectly - and tightly.

We decided to temporarily pop-rivet along the corners which was enough to hold everything in place.

As you can see she's a little hemmed in by a Safari & a Vickers, but now she can stand on her own two feet, Pete will rearrange the shop so I can get round and buck that join line.

Inside the frames lined up perfectly with the angle-brackets.

The front end-cap had come out to repair the dent.

But I'm pretty sure I'll take out all the interior skin to renew the insulation.

The well-padded beam hadn't made any marks or dents & I'd really recommend this way of lifting the body-shell - a central chain hoist through the centre vent allowed the shell to balance perfectly, retain its shape without the need for any bracing and the chain hoist gave us precise control of lifting & lowering.

... O3069 rides again, soon !

Upside-down...

Time to ignore the airborne distractions outside & deal with the unseen areas; the underfloor insulation & the bellywrap.  Look at the photo on the right closely.... No, its not a new low-rider Flying Cloud

... the chassis really is upside-down.

Thanks to Pete and his forklift @ Vintage American Trailer Co  I had the luxury of working on the underside of the chassis from the topside.

We'd decided to use rigid, foil-backed insulation board.

70mm sheets fill the gap between the floor and the bellywrap perfectly. It won't absorb or trap water, so hopefully the rust associated with the original rockwool insulation trapping moisture against the steel of the chassis won't be repeated. Edges are easily shaped to fit with the curve of the outriggers.

The sections were glued to the underside of the floor and the joins taped with trusty aluminium tape.

We also taped over the chassis steel too - it'll hopefully help, along with the paint, to cut down on the corrosion problems of aluminium meeting steel.

 

... the central box is for a flexible water tank. We'd decided where possible not to maintain her strength & not cut through the floor if there was another option; so the water tank will be slung under the main floor.

Outside Pete's workshop there's always the pleasant distraction of the Harrier pilots training...

... not a bad backdrop for the 54 FC.

Time to make a start on that bellywrap... We'd saved the corroded old sections to provide rough patterns.

Mark, cut, bend, clamp...

... and finally a pop-rivet.  In true Airstream style, we weren't too worried about neatness; the main concern was to get a nice neat curve on the sides.

The plan is to fit the whole wrap and then spin the chassis back to allow us to trim the edges and buck rivet them to the C channel. All of which will be hidden once the body-shell is dropped back on.

We used 4mm pop-rivets with a wide flange.

... and pretty soon she was starting to look like a worm's eye view of an Airstream.

At Pete's suggestion, I used some vintage car trim to protect the aluminium sheets from the abrasive edges of the outriggers. Our's came from Woolies in Market Deeping, Peterborough.

Its simple to cut, bend to shape and push on. It naturally grips and won't fall off, so should stop any chafing of steel against bellywrap.

To take the EU-legal tow hitch Pete has welded a sturdy box steel pole up the centre-line. We fitted right-angle aluminium to its sides to rivet the bellywrap to.

The bellywrap sheets fit up the sides of the water tank box, so should blend in nicely (if its noticeable at all).

A couple more days & she'll be ready to spin rightside-up again.

The Airmen and the Headhunters - on TV, Veterans Day, 11th November.

When I'm not being idle with all things aluminium, my day job is as a cameraman, shooting documentaries for TV.  We shot the true story of The Airmen and the Headhunters earlier this year in Borneo, Australia, the UK and Texas - where Dan Illerich, the only surviving airman lives.  


A WW2, US Liberator crew, shot up over Brunei Bay, eventually crashes in the wild central highlands of Borneo. Captured by the local tribesmen the airmen fear for their lives. But since the local tribe, the Lun Dayeh, had suffered torture & killings at the hands of the occupying Japanese, they decide to side with the Allies and surprisingly enough, prove kind, welcoming and very generous with what provisions they have; meanwhile, the Japanese plunder the island's oil resources and subject any opposition to torture and worse, proving the terms "savage" and "civilized" to be quite subjective. 


With the help of a local District Official and Lun Dayeh tribesmen, the airmen survived for over 6 months in uncharted interior jungles, avoiding capture by occupying Japanese forces. With the help of a maverick British anthropologist, Major Tom Harrisson, who was parrachuted in,  with a small team of Australian commandos, to find them, they ran a very successful campaign of terror against the Japanese, which allowed the Lun Dayeh to return to their old headhunting ways, taking Japanese trophies back to their longhouses.


Its a great story of the meeting of two worlds, bravery, the resulting bonds of friendship and eventual escape thanks to an ingenious airstrip made of bamboo...


Hope you enjoy it.


Chris

I do like to be beside the C...

Finally, I've got my arse in gear and blown the summer dust off the Flying Cloud. Time to fabricate & fit the all-important C channel.

I'm sure some of you have folding presses & guillotines but we went low-tech and got out the tin-snips.

Slightly thicker aluminium than the original - a 5" strip will give us a 2 1/2 x 1" channel with the all important inch and a half base.

Snip, snip, snip...

Now to bend...

Some plywood off-cuts from the floor with clamps at either end and a central bolt grip the strip along its length.

Then start bending. By hand to begin with...

... then with a little more force to tighten the corners.

Start with the inch...

... and finish with the two and a half.

Wally would be proud ! One down, ten to go.

Don't think my precision was completely spot on but then as we all know, nor was Airstream's !

More snipping on the corner sections. I was going to cut out triangles but overlapping the snipped sections worked perfectly well and saved more snipping & cut hands.

After a bit of trial and error - I ended up snipping about every 3/4 inch and putting in a bend on each.

This makes too tight a bend initially but it'll open out evenly to fit the corner line.

We used stainless steel coach bolts which pull in tight to the underside of the floor and make it easier to bend or lock the nuts on the topside.

And a dab of the dreaded silicone to seal the hole.

Starting to look the part again.

The shell slipped over fine, with enough breathing space for the belly-wrap between the channel and the outer sheets.

As we'll be flipping the chassis and fitting the bellywrap first we marked the position of each of the frames to bolt through the short sections of 1/4" right-angle alloy which Airstream used on key frames to anchor them to the floor or chassis members.

The beauty of having the shell on a chain hoist means its a doddle to lift it up and down to check the fit - thanks to Pete Ritchie @ VATCO - Vintage American Trailer Co, for that luxury. Can't recommend his company highly enough and I'm pleased to see that he may well be working on a newly imported 54 Flying Cloud too... Clouds rule !

Check the link to his site - http://vatco.eu/

I also got the chance to blow the dust off my second-hand Ingersol Rand rivet gun and bucked my first rivet. Hurrah !

... worked beautifully, even if I'd overcooked the first couple.

An Aluminium-free summer !

Very sorry to report but this has been an aluminium-free summer ! We'd made great progress on the Flying Cloud in the spring with the chassis and fixing the new floor BUT my work piled in at the wrong time.

So the trusty yurt came out for the Larmer Tree music festival and for two weeks camping in deepest Cornwall in August.

Great time, great food (shore crabs, samphire & kofte kebabs...), sailing, canoeing and, of course, good old English summer weather - torrential rain.

With the odd sunny day...

I'm sure its of little interest to you alumanuts but our (homemade) yurt has done great service for the past 5 years. Its based on the traditional Mongolian yurt with a few helpful twists:

The door is much the same but has a tough, unstretchable rope of fixed (15ft) diameter attatched to it.

This rope sits on top of the lattice walls (khanas - which concertina down to 3, 2ft wide sections) and the roof poles have a slot cut in them which hooks over the rope, making it very fast to erect (20mins - yes really!). Everything is tied together with nylon cord and webbing - in Mongolia they use rawhide - which means everything is fixable with a knife, drill & more cord.

The whole structure is incredibly lightweight and strong. We then have canvas walls and roof. And over the hexagonal hole in the centre some clear, plastic stitched into canvas for those inclement summer days ! And it all fits in and on our trusty Volvo.

Hopefully the next post will be some much-needed progress on the Flying Cloud.

Measure twice... cut once !

Sorry for the lack of posting. This work was done a month ago but other work has taken me off to Borneo to shoot a interesting documentary about the US crew of a 'Liberator' bomber, shot down towards the end of WW2, over central Borneo and captured by the Dayak headhunters. The Dayaks sided with the airmen and over the next 7 months looked after them and ran a successful guerilla campaign against the occupying Japanese army.  The only survivor now lives in Houston, Texas. It should air both in the UK on Ch 4 & US on PBS.  

But now back to more important work...

With £800 of Marine Ply secured to the chassis I rather nervously got out the jigsaw...

I started with the step. The old maxim; measure twice, cut once, was ringing in my head. At this stage a cock-up would be costly.

A good steel edge & a heavily scored line to cut up against is the best way to get a nice clean edge in plywood.

The chassis was pretty true but it made good sense to always work off and check measurements back to the centre-line.

I first cut a generous inch wider than the template. 

And the beauty of having the body-shell balanced on a chain-hoist meant it was easy to wheel the floor in and out. Checking, measuring and trimming. Little by little.

I used the off-cuts from the best preserved curve to shape the exact same shape for the others.

Until finally the body dropped snugly onto the new floor.

The outer sheets overlapping the plywood and the rivet holes lining up ready to be re-rivetted to the C-channel which will be the next thing to fit.