There's an English rebuild shop, in Northamptonshire, I believe, called Hawker Restorations. Though of course their bread and butter work is the Hurricane, they've done Spitfires and P51s... Might check.. P.J. Nebergall On Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:22:58 -0700 Don Williams <dwilli10@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > At 05:48 PM 7/6/2006 -0700, you wrote: > >Kieth, > > > >Naw! What he really means is that the main wing spar has the web > >made of aluminium and the spar caps are made of a different > >metal. This leads to > >bi-metallic corrosion in which the least anodic metal is corroded > away. > > > >Probably Don could explain it better, as I just had 3 Margaritas > and > >might have difficulty explaining metallurgical problems. > > > >Glad to hear from Don again. > > > >Jerry > > Rocky explained it a different way, but I may have it wrong since I > was sitting in my car to depart Wilmington after a dive session and > he was kneeling outside with the engine running. > > My understanding is that the main spar was extruded with one > aluminum > alloy on the inside and another over that. That completely hid any > anodic effects from casual inspection and the problem was found as a > > result of either a crash, or at least a failure on the ground, maybe > > even when a plane was being chopped up in the bone yard. > > I can't say Jerry is not correct about built-up construction since > he's in the business, but that doesn't explain why a simple > inspection of a built-up assembly wouldn't have disclosed the > problem earlier. > > Anyhow, I just found Kent Rockwell's email address and sent him a > query. The message hasn't bounced yet so I suppose I have the right > one. > > I do know that Rocky did about 50 Mustangs at Corona and then quit > that business, not sure why; however I think the job just took too > much personal supervision, given the ultimate risks. I also know > that he did not do Tom Cruise's P-51. > > I do have the notion that some re builders did not always install a > new-model main spar, but on the other hand I haven't heard of any > crashes in the civilian sector due to wing failure. > > We will see. > > Don Williams > La Jolla, CA > --- Rollei List - Post to rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx - Subscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'subscribe' in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org - Unsubscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org - Online, searchable archives are available at //www.freelists.org/archives/rollei_list