Bob & Ron's vintage Link Trainer (aka Blue Box) restoration adventures
We had help installing the wings from Rick’s grandsons, Ian and Tanner. It was hard to find the original location of the aileron hinge screw holes since they were buried under the new fabric. Diligent pork-stick probing did the job. Next time we’ll mark the holes when installing fabric. Both wings on; one aileron moves.
We finally finished doping our C-3 trainer. Wings and control surfaces are ready for the fuselage.
Leroy got out his old drafting tools to place the star perfectly parallel to the fuselage.
This looks like a circus, but is just the cheapest Amazon spray paint booth over top our C-3 blue box. We only punched one hole in the tent and perhaps shortened a couple poles setting it up, but it seems to work just fine. Got a spray coat of sealer on today, and a coat of UV protector – that’s the shiny grey stuff. Next week we apply a couple coats of white butyrate dope.
We started replacing worn-out fabric on our C-3 with Ceconite. Rick (right) is a jack of all trades and has been helping with Blue Box refurbishment for years. After ripping off the old fabric, sanding the wood and priming it with poly, we asked Leroy (left) if he would be our tutor. Leroy is an airplane fabric expert. He recovered Wright Patterson AFB Training SPO’s Blue Box many years ago; and he recovered the Memphis Belle’s ailerons with authentic cotton for the Air Force Museum. Leroy is trying to teach us tricks of the fabric trade.
We were working on our C-3. We finally got the directional gyro working; after 3 disassembles / reassembles. All of our fuselage instruments were working except for the clock, for the first time. Then Rick said “Do you smell something?” Things went from best-ever to bad in an instant. Smoke billowed out of the control box as we fumbled for the OFF switch. Wax from the burning autosyn transformer dripped into a pool inside the control box. We opened the building doors to let the smoke outside.
