Final Assembly & Details

Details, details, details!

In the final assembly process there are many skills needed that fall under the “lost knowledge” category. Modern FAA recognized “Acceptable Methods, techniques, and Practices” are detailed in an FAA document called AC 43.13. However, in the 1930s, there was no 43.13, nor an FAA for that matter. Instead, the Civil Aeronautics Manual 18 (CAM 18) produced by the Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA) was in use. This was created by the Air Commerce Act of 1926 bringing together a number of sources of information and guidance for the construction and maintenance of aircraft. 

Many books were published during this period to provide more detail about aspects of construction and maintenance, as this was a fast moving technical area with advances being developed at a blistering rate. One set of books that any aircraft restorer will have are the “Aircraft Maintenance” & “Aircraft Engine Maintenance” written by D.J. Brimm and H.E. Boggess. Commonly referred to as just “Brimm & Boggess”. Both books can be easily obtained from Ebay. 

As work progressed, original factory Pitcairn drawings were the primary reference for authenticity. Locating original sources of information is the only way to achieve true authenticity.  CAM 18, AC 43.13, along with Brimm & Boggess was used as reference to produce the final parts.

When NC97W was first designed and built, the modern technique known as Nicopress swaged cable ends had not been developed. There are no Nicopress fittings on 97W! The cable ends are made per factory drawings and replicate the originals exactly. All control cables are terminated using the “Five-Tuck Navy Splice” method. The tail brace wires use the “Wrapped and Soldered” method. The brake cables are tuck spliced on one end and wrapped and soldered on the other.

To give you an idea about the time saving that Nicopress brought to the aircraft industry: A Nicopress requires about 5 minutes to complete whereas each Five-Tuck Navy Splice takes me 30 minutes to complete! To be honest, I did get help from the_old_barnstormer on the 26 or so tuck splices needed for the project. 

The artwork, lettering, and stripe on the sides of the fuselage were hand painted by a local artist using photos from the 1939-40 to exactly replicate the originals. It was a very hot couple of days as Skip did a beautiful job with these details!