Getting there- 2-33 resto progress
Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 4:37 pmThe club is making good progress, although "just recovering" something like a 2-33 means a lot more than taking the old skin off and putting new skin on.
We pretty much removed everything from the steel frame except the fiberglass nose (not necessary and probably best if we don't try to remove it), then started hunting and killing any rust spots we could find. Peg generously volunteered to supervise.
A few days of two or three guys grinding, sanding, etc. got the job done. And of course all the good paint had to be gone over with fine sandpaper to prep it for the finish coat of epoxy we're going to put on soon, maybe tomorrow. Seen here is the bottom of the fuse- those few bars were the only ones that really needed to be stripped down to bare metal, as repeated soaking in water had made the old paint flaky with surface rust underneath. You can see by this pic what a job it is sanding every inch of pipe, and all those corners!
Removing the nose would mean half-destroying it, but there was a crack that needed fixing. Here it's seen halfway thru the process- some material gouged out, and a first coat of resin in there. This old nose has been repaired a few times... I think this time we'll have it looking better than before. The whole fuse will probably just be plain white when we're done, but I half-jokingly volunteered to do a nice shark's mouth (like a P-40) on the nose as an accent. I think it would be cool... might be the only 2-33 in the world with a shark's mouth! 
There's a bunch of ABS plastic interior panels on these birds... in glorious "cat-puke beige" ca. 1977 on this particular one. Blechh. Here is one panel, "before"... I've cleaned all of them and we will be painting them all gray with a special paint formulated for airplane interior stuff. Should look much better.
A "before/after" shot... with the help of one of the loft-mates who cleans and repairs brass instruments, I got the last vestiges of white paint off all four cast-aluminum rudder pedals, and buffed them up a little.
Going back tomorrow... the panel and various other things are also being refurbished, so maybe I'll post some progress shots of that stuff later.
We pretty much removed everything from the steel frame except the fiberglass nose (not necessary and probably best if we don't try to remove it), then started hunting and killing any rust spots we could find. Peg generously volunteered to supervise.
A few days of two or three guys grinding, sanding, etc. got the job done. And of course all the good paint had to be gone over with fine sandpaper to prep it for the finish coat of epoxy we're going to put on soon, maybe tomorrow. Seen here is the bottom of the fuse- those few bars were the only ones that really needed to be stripped down to bare metal, as repeated soaking in water had made the old paint flaky with surface rust underneath. You can see by this pic what a job it is sanding every inch of pipe, and all those corners!
Removing the nose would mean half-destroying it, but there was a crack that needed fixing. Here it's seen halfway thru the process- some material gouged out, and a first coat of resin in there. This old nose has been repaired a few times... I think this time we'll have it looking better than before. The whole fuse will probably just be plain white when we're done, but I half-jokingly volunteered to do a nice shark's mouth (like a P-40) on the nose as an accent.
I think it would be cool... might be the only 2-33 in the world with a shark's mouth! There's a bunch of ABS plastic interior panels on these birds... in glorious "cat-puke beige" ca. 1977 on this particular one. Blechh. Here is one panel, "before"... I've cleaned all of them and we will be painting them all gray with a special paint formulated for airplane interior stuff. Should look much better.
A "before/after" shot... with the help of one of the loft-mates who cleans and repairs brass instruments, I got the last vestiges of white paint off all four cast-aluminum rudder pedals, and buffed them up a little.
Going back tomorrow... the panel and various other things are also being refurbished, so maybe I'll post some progress shots of that stuff later.