Avro Lancaster NX611 'Just Jane' and the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre View this email in your browser THE RIVET CLUB Newsletter 5 - Welcome to the club! The restoration continues... Silver Lancaster! Week 5 has been the continuation of the paint stripping of Avro Lancaster NX611 'Just Jane'. A laborious task that has taken all of the paint strippers by surprise! It normally takes 4 days to completely strip an airliner, the Lancaster has taken 12!! The fuselage, mainplanes and tail plane have all be successfully stripped of paint and cleaned. The majority of components that were removed; such as the bomb doors; are set to be stripped in January. Next week our engineers will be able to 'have the aircraft back' and do a good survey of her. At first sight there are areas of corrosion on all surfaces and sections but the extent of it is yet to be found. Looking at the wings it seems there are higher levels of corrosion around the engines possibly caused by exhaust gases and deposits. Strangely all of the corrosion seems to follow the pattern of the black stripes that were painted on the Lancaster wings during Tiger
Force and French service, even to the extent of a clean straight line at its edge. There are also areas of corrosion caused by 'disimilar metals'. What you tend to find on old aicraft such as a Lancaster is that two dissimilar metals react with each other causing corrosion. For example and steel plates or fixings on the aircraft have reacted with the alluminium and caused it to corrode. A full skin survey must now be done creating a map of the surface of the Lancaster both for our records, for the CAA and to coordinate a measured respone and plan for the work ahead. What is still unknown is the condition of the formers and stringers where they meet corroded skins. We have a strong team for the coming weeks and i suspect a great deal of swarf is going to be created while our experienced engineers correct the issues we find! We have released some dates for Restoration Tours around the hangar so you can see the work being done, these can be booked HERE I've placed some photos below of our progress so far. Many thanks to Martin Keen of Silksheen Photography for his photos. I think you'll all agree he has done another fantastic job... If there is anything you would like to see from the Rivet Club and anything else you would like in these emails please let me know! That's all for now, thanks for your support! Andrew Panton *** Warning this is photo heavy!!!***
Above- The fuselage detail work begins Above- The fuselage is stripped of every last piece of paint and areas that were masked off are revealed to be stripped.
Above- Undersides of the horizontal stabilisers are stripped Above- Sheeted. Key to the operation is the protection of vulnerable parts fo the aircraft.
Above- Undersides of the mainplanes are stripped. Here you can see them prior to the last two stripper applications.
Above- Undersides are getting there. Here you can see where corrosion is beginning to be revealed as the darker areas begin to show. Above- Bare fin. The vertical stabiliser shows signs of damage repair at its base
Above- Just the tops of the wings left
Above- The tailplane looks fairly good but the fins to do have some issues to correct.
Above- The leading edge part stripped
Above- The fuselage awaiting its final clean Above- Clean Lancaster, all of the paint removed
Above- The cockpit canopy is all that remains painted and will be scuffed down for repaint. The cockpit perspex and wooden structure will be tackled another year.
Above- Nose on
Above- The front turret support ring requires some treatment to remove the corrosion caused by standing water.
Above- Clean as a whistle
Above- The paint strip was all finished around 7.30pm on Thursday 1st December. The hangar will be cleaned and prepped ready to be reopened on the 3rd December. Copyright Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre, All rights reserved. Joined the Rivet Club or the 'Just Jane' Supporters Association
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