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Old 12-22-2014, 02:47 PM
John Buchtenkirch John Buchtenkirch is offline
MetalShaper of the Month October 2012
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Glen Cove, Long Island
Posts: 1,675
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RockHillWill View Post
I am seeing Pers' viewpoint as well. By making additional pieces, it gives you a clearer understanding of the flow before you actually start on the forming of the panels, and as I learned from my only moderate bucks, the more stations that are there you take fewer shortcuts in the forming and you have the stability to gently use the hammer to make some of the finish forming. I found that strategic locations of the stations worked well for holding the panels in alignment for welding as well. On a buck of this size, it would be my thinking that to get around or inside to look at the fit from the back side would always require another person to hold the panel while you looked.
Will, you hold the panel against the buck with bungee cords, on the smaller panels I mostly do I just set the panel on my bench and lay the buck inside the panel. At Grumman Aerospace where they were doing large panels like radial engine fairings they would have several bungee cords attached permanently at one end to the buck so they could quickly attach & remove parts. I showed the senior hammer man (George Burkhardt) at Grumman some photos of blind bucks and he just laughed and said they wouldn’t work at Grumman. He said every station on a buck represents a stringer or rib that the panels have to be riveted to, so fit-up has to be nearly perfect, you should not be guessing if the panel is touching every station 100% like you have to do with a blind backside type of buck. He was also the person who told me about using shipping band iron with the end bent at an approximate right angle to check for panel to station fit-up. ~ John Buchtenkirch
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