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B-17F Scrapping - Storage Depot 41, Kingman, AZ.


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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

After a break of two months, I got back to doing something on the diorama. I spent this morning planning out the wrecking crane ( or most of it until I ran off the edge of the paper! ). Then this afternoon, I started building the assembly jig for the crane jib. The only original Kingman crane picture I have shows just the upper part of the jib, so the rest of the winch mechanism design and positioning was based on several other crane pictures I found on the net.

 

b17boneyard035.jpg

 

Starting to cut the brass parts.

 

b17boneyard036.jpg

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Further work today. The pulley at the top end of the jib was made with a piece of brass tube and some washers. This was soldered to the ends of each jib half to hold them together. 

 

b17boneyard041.jpg

 

A second jig was made to aid the assembly of the halves. Four cross pieces were added in the centre third section of the jib, and then another set of pulleys added near the top end of the jib.

 

b17boneyard042.jpg

 

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Cletracs were around 5.75 to 6 tons in weight. The cutting blade I read somewhere was 5,100 ponuds ( or 2.5 tons ). Allowing for the jib leverage, the tractor probably didn't need a huge amount of additional ballasting. This is of course a generic crane based around a Cletrac, so those cranes working at Kingman may have had a much higher chassis weight.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Further progress on my Kingman scrapping diorama today, with more work on the Cletrac crane. An afternoon of cross-bracing the crane jib.

 

b17boneyard049.jpg


I'm way too tight to spend money on buying Microstrip, so it was all just cut on my bandsaw and sanded smooth by hand.

 

b17boneyard050.jpg

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All the bracing was glued with cyano, but first, there was lots of cutting, sanding, and trial fitting repeatedly until they fit. Only two ended up being a bit short, both of which got used in other positions. The two sides were done first.
 

b17boneyard051.jpg

 

Cross bracing on the top and bottom followed.

 

b17boneyard052.jpg

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The jib attachment on the Cletrac came next, with a brass tube and channel soldered together, then screwed and expoied into the bottom of the chassis. The pivot pin isn't permanently fixed at present.

 

b17boneyard057.jpg

 

Just a little epoxy squeezed out that needs cleaning up.

 

b17boneyard058.jpg

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  • 10 months later...
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  • 1 year later...

The project has been dormant since February 2017 until today. With some other projects out of the way, the B-17 box came back out. In order for the project to move on, I decided not to get too bogged down in fuselage details decided to push on. The rear fuselage was joined and the tail gun fairing opened up.

 

b17boneyard063.jpg

 

Both tailplanes had previously had their elevators cut free, but they were joined, the false trailing edge filled with styrene and then filled.

 

b17boneyard064.jpg

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This lump is about the size of a 1/72 scale WW2 fighter!

 

b17boneyard065.jpg

 

The waist section halves had distorted while sitting in the box, probably due to the formers and stringers glued inside. They were glued together and clamped, slightly squeezed to try and help return them to the correct shape.

 

b17boneyard066.jpg

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