Party Time

[Josco]

DD,

Grizzly shows a 1 5/32" HSS chucking reamer in their catalog for $30.95
http://grizzly.com/products/Chucking-Reamer-HSS-1-5-32-/G9462

as does Manhattan Supply at a higher price.
http://www1.mscdirect.com/CGI/NNSRIT?PMPXNO=12581181&PMT4NO=78329388

[Double D]

Thanks Josco, seen all those.  The are right diameter wrong length.  They are 11" OAL.  I need to reach 11 inches.  Probably get in 10 inches in a pinch with those.. 

My friend has a lot of this kind of tooling that he picked up at Boeing surplus sales in extra long lengths.  He thinks he may have one that is close enough to get the job done.  Best part of that, it' won't cost me anything.

[GGaskill]

If you use an S&D drill for deep hole drilling, grind the flutes back past the end of the body so the chips can exit.  It might be a good idea to add sheet metal flutes to the tubing for the same reason.

[Josco]

DD,

Free is good, hope your friend has one the correct size. When we needed to extend the length of a drill or reamer shank we would grind or turn the end diameter
of the shank approx. 1" in length then drill a mating hole in our extension material and silver solder the extension onto the back of the drill or reamer.

George,
Excellent idea about the drill flutes.


      Joe

[Double D]

Thanks, George, You must have looked in my tool box while you were here.  My S&D drills are modified that way.

I am drilling a 1/2" pilot hole to depth with my 18" drill. Then I will go in with my 18" long 1" drill,  then the  1 1/8" S&D followed by the 1 5/32 chucking reamer.

That should help with the chip load.

For loctite to put the S&D drill in the tubing, I am going to use 638.

[Terry C.]

DD, what are you building with the 1 ⁵/₃₂" bore?

My quarter-scale 12-pounder Napoleon has that bore diameter (1.156").

So does the Coehorn I built as its companion (Li'l Brudder). It's externally a quarter-scale 24-pounder, but it's bored as a twelve-pounder so that it can use the same balls as the Napoleon.

[Double D]

I have acquired almost 500  1 1/8" steel balls, old oil well pump check valve balls.  I am designing around the balls.

[carronader]

   Discount Douglas.................your mother would be proud of you. There was a big trumpet blast when you got new lathe installed DD...............nothing since............what happened to the wheels you were doing ?

[jeeper1]

1 5/32" bore=1.15625 inches.

[Terry C.]

Okay so I rounded it off, I didn't think that .00025" would be missed...

 

[Double D]

Tom,

I did my heritige proud. I got those steel balls and a bunch others, little over 230lbs worth, for a case 24 bottles of cheap beer.

The lathe's primary function is for gunsmithing and it has been working at that.  There are other prioritys...I am retired and must pace my self. And I do other things to.  Like my daily nap.

Why just today a cousin sent me a packet of pictures of my father.  I know very little about him, he died in an accident in 1952. Some of the pictures, I already have.  But one of the pictures I had only heard about.  See below.  There also was letter that gave me Dads military unit.  Dad was in the 389th Bomb Group, 564 Squadron.  So this afternoon, I have been researching and reading about that Bomb group.



I am also in the process of planning my next cannon project for the lathe  to shoot those steel balls.

Oh and did you see that mystery metal post of mine/  I have been researching bakery ovens to find the company that made the oven that piece o mystery oven came from.  Found it.  Just waiting for a response to my email. Another project for the lathe.

Jeeper and Terry.  When I ask my friend for a 1 5/32 reamer, scowled at me, "give me decimals, my caliper don't do fractions!".  So  I divided 5 by 32 on the computer and copy and pasted the .15625 and stuck a 1 in front of it.  So he belly-ached, "dump the .00025, you ain't gonna work that fine anyways!"  So after he finds the reamer and sends it to me to use, I am going send him a polite note saying thank you very much, and stick the .00025 where the sun don't shine!!!   He's the kind of guy that would appreciate such remarks.

[carronader]

Douglas.. you see those flying jackets they're wearing..........they did repro copies over here.......I had one...damn things were heavy.........Bombing runs were no party...........and coming back you had fighters waiting...........sitting Ducks...............that and Convoy duty North to Russia..........no thanks........waiting for the Tinfish with your name on it.............nope     now it's Roadside bombs...........don't change much 

[Terry C.]

 

Well, however you measure it, it's exactly 1/4 the diameter of a 12-pounder bore. It's also very close (close enough) to 1/5 the diameter of a 24-pounder.


Edit: I just realized it's also very very close to 1/6 the diameter of a 42-pounder.

Things that make you go hmmmmmm......... 

[Josco]

B-24 Liberator, one sweet aircraft. Here's a pic. from last years visit to Ct.

[RocklockI]

That old photo looks like the Liberator had some "up armor" underneith the pilots window ? A field expiedenent ?   

[Double D]

On one of the many websites I saw yesterday this armor plate is referred to as a field modified.  Looking at the various pictures it looks like a modification sent to the field for  installation, up armored as Gary says.

Did you catch the old nose art...looks like it was removed.  Perhaps this A/C belong to another Squadron and was moved to Dad's Squadron.



In the packet of pictures was a V-letter Dad sent to his Mother.  The family lived at Creswell, Oregon in the late 30's and the 40's.  Dad owned a small farm and worked in the woods as a logger.  Creswell a very small rural farm town was settled the 1870's  and the town found in the early 1900's.  The town in the 1940's , amounted to little more than one street with a gas station, post office, general store, a few other small businesses and the packing plant for the orchards. They did have a Doctor and Dentist. All in a typical small U.S. rural town.  

In the letter home, dad wrote this:

Was in London the other day & had a pretty good time, but I still would rather be at home. I went through the House of Parliament and saw several things of interest that I have heard about but is not as near as interesting as what we have at home.  What struck me most was the age of everything.

Home is always better.

No mention of cannons.

[carronader]

London hasn't changed...............what a dump.        Gotta go where the work is.............don't have to like it.

[RocklockI]

With 46 missions under her belt she must have went thru several crews .

I wonder who Marjorie was ..... ? Good Girl !

eta there is a B-24 all piled up at the 'downtown Ft Collins' airport just off the runway .

[KABAR2]

DD here's a site you might find interesting, it is dedicated to the liberator crews,

http://liberatorcrew.com/01_Home.htm

There is also a good book written  by Stephen E Ambrose called the Wild Blue

it deals with the liberator crews & what they went through in WWII.

http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Blue-B-24s-Germany-1944-45/dp/0743203399


Allen <><

[Double D]

Thanks guys, I actually found quite a few websites including thes these two on dad unit.  http://www.389thbg.net/ and http://www.389thbombgroup.com/index.php.

Allen of all the many webstires I found, I didn't find that one. 

I was aware of the Ambrose book, but never read it.

[Ex 49'er]

Douglas,   Just wondering if your dad is in that picture.

[Double D]

Douglas,   Just wondering if your dad is in that picture.

Yep Dad's in the picture.  Can you find him? You have to analyze the picture to find him. You have to look at details to find him. Good practice for looking at cannons and identifing them.  So here you go.

There are three groups of people in the picture; flight crew, ground crew, admin/relief crew.

Dad was the crew chief.  Crew chief was in charge of the ground crew and responsible for aircraft maintenance.  Crew chief and ground crew sometimes flew relief.  The Crew chief flew maintenance and check flights.  Crew chiefs did not fly missions on a regular basis, but flew more often than the rest of the ground crew.

Gan you find him?

For those who have met me, there is a resembalance.

[seacoastartillery]

     Double D,     Using the word handsome to keep myself out of trouble, I think that handsome guy at the far left in the front row is your Dad.  My reasoning is he is with the ground crew, wearing the correct uniform, appears to bear some resemblance to you, and is positioned at the right side of the correct group, from their perspective, which is where most group leaders are in WWI photos or in military group photos in subsequent years.  Most leaders of American Civil War groups are smack dab in the middle.  What say you?

Tracy

[Double D]

Sorry for not getting back to this. 

Tracy Handsome? Well doesn't matter, even though you need new glasses, you are right that is dad.

I have learned that this is a picture of the crew chiefs of the 565th Squadron of the 389th Bombardment Group.  The picture is known but Dad's identity was not.

The plane is the Heaven can wait.



 

[seacoastartillery]

     Looks like I haven't lost my touch, as yet.  Heaven Can Wait!  Great name for a B-24 Liberator in those circumstances.  Thanks for posting those photos, Double D.


From Division Artillery, Ron,

"A friend of mine is turning his 3 car garage into a recreation room.  He has a big flat screen TV, a no hold-em polker table and a 13 ft. wet bar.  It is decorated in a southseas--Pirate theme.  Well, you can't have Pirates running around a bar that long without a swivel gun.  Ask Tropico.  Soooo I went into the shop and started wood chips flying, ala Zulu.  The first pix is of construction.  Stock that size really jumps around till you get it trued and balanced."

    Ron,    Just yesterday we were thinking of putting an odd shaped, heavy piece of steel on the lathe to turn a journal on the middle part and Mike reminded me of our first experience with turning a heavy steel round of 4142 pre-hardened gun-tube steel weighing 240 pounds.  The piece was hot-formed and had a nasty, protruding seam down one side.  It was the summer of 2003 and we just had the lathe delivered two months before.    The plan was to just turn a smooth 3" band near the tailstock end so it would rotate nicely in the steady rest and the 3 jaw chuck.   When he started the lathe, this round jumped so violently in the steady rest that Mike jammed the brakes on after about one and a half revs. !

     We removed the chuck and the steady rest, put a faceplate on the lathe and the 90 degree milling attachment onto the Bridgeport, drilled two No. 5 centers into the calculated center of the round on each end of the rusty beast and a 3/8" lathe dog pin hole an inch from the outside edge on one end.  After tapping a steel pin into the lathe dog hole, we put the unruly round between the faceplate and the tailstock, live-center securely.

     It still rotated out of balance, slowly for three heavy passes, but not like it did when we thought the destruction of the steady rest was imminent!  Sometimes it's hard to remember exactly what you learned in a school class 30 years ago.


Tracy and Mike

[RocklockI]

You can see the washed out art on the earlier pic the hand and pitchfok are still there but with the up armor and name change from Audrey to Marjorie .

I always liked 'The Strawberry Bitch' and 'Lady be good' ...which she wasnt ,but mostly because of an inept navigator who got every one killed .

It's one of the most agonizing storing in history , surrvival that just was not meant to be . Very sad .

They aborted a bombing run and returned to IIRC Libya but the homing signal was only on a line back then ,they flew right over the base and countinued on ...the right coruse as far as they were concerned ,ran out of gas . They all bailed .

All but one were eventually found were they died 12 years later . One by one along an old Italian army road the enteries in the Captians Diary are almost hard to read ....

As I understand the Airforce's and other surrvival manuals were rewrittin as far as how much water one needs to surrvive . 1 capfull a day in the Lybian desert .

They said the coffee in the thermoses was still drinkable when they were found in plane which crashed ,in execlent shape .

[carronader]

M&T   hope you guys keep unloading your experience on here , people like me who don't know machining from milking goats have got a lot to learn . would have taken me a while to work out setting up an awkward log for turning on the wood lathe and your tip has been filed for future reference.
 Gary's little story makes you wonder how the " Hero  " Gangsta types we have in both our countries would have got on faced with challenges like that Air Crew were facing ........day in...........day out.

[Zulu]

Carronader,
I glued up 4" thick fir stock to turn a 32" diameter bowl.  The grain in the wood was much more dense in some boards than others.  When I turned on the lathe (that weighs 400 lbs.), it jumped across the floor till I could shut it off.  I remedied the problem by screwing metal weights to the light side on the back of the piece (like tire weights).  It allowed me to turn one side.  Then I flipped the piece and did the same thing so I could finish the other side.  It worked really well and is the biggest diameter bowl I ever turned.
Zulu

[KABAR2]

You can see the washed out art on the earlier pic the hand and pitchfok are still there but with the up armor and name change from Audrey to Marjorie .

I always liked 'The Strawberry Bitch' and 'Lady be good' ...which she wasnt ,but mostly because of an inept navigator who got every one killed .

It's one of the most agonizing storing in history , surrvival that just was not meant to be . Very sad .

They aborted a bombing run and returned to IIRC Libya but the homing signal was only on a line back then ,they flew right over the base and countinued on ...the right coruse as far as they were concerned ,ran out of gas . They all bailed .

All but one were eventually found were they died 12 years later . One by one along an old Italian army road the enteries in the Captians Diary are almost hard to read ....

As I understand the Airforce's and other surrvival manuals were rewrittin as far as how much water one needs to surrvive . 1 capfull a day in the Lybian desert .

They said the coffee in the thermoses was still drinkable when they were found in plane which crashed ,in execlent shape

I remember reading a book on the Lady Be Good back when I was a kid, part of the problem was with triangulation on the transponders
and the fact they thought they were over the water but were decieved by the dunes at night. It was found by accident when a oil company aircraft spoted the wreckage and reported to the military here are a couple of web sites on this.

http://www.ladybegood.com/

http://www.ladybegood.net/

[RocklockI]

'Brief' is another one that didnt come home . You've probably seen it in film  .

This was a much happier day !


Horror surronded these guys ...... ...... This was in the Pacific . One guy got out .......but...

Gary