PBY Restoration

My contributions so far have been rebuilding the tail, and the old radio room. The tail repairs were very extensive. Started out with removing the many of the skins and doing a thorough inspection. A lot of problems were found , mainly in the form of corrosion. The main keel that runs from the air stair to the tail cone was repaired once already and it was found that its was corroded beyond limits along with four large sections of the skins and several stringers. The keel is a long aluminum extrusion that is no longer available so a die was made and extrusions extruded. The whole area looked rough so it was cleaned, sandblasted and painted with Akzo Nobel primer. The skins were matched drilled on to fresh aluminum sheet and all stringers repaired in accordance with the structural repair manual. New caps were made by a metal fab place in Boring Oregon. It was twenty feet long and had a 45 degree bend which is beyond the capability of any tools we have access to. Then we riveted the new keel on then skins then cap on with sealant. Now there is no doubt that the tail is as good or better then the original structure and it looks much better as well.