Monday, September 24, 2012

Alaskan Nike Vets, Friend in Germany and back to work..

Well, it been a while since I published my last Blog. I have been laying low. But all that came to an end with a week's worth of rejuvenation down at the Outer Banks of North Carolina followed by our site, NY56, hosting the Alaskan Nike Veteran's Reunion midweek and then a normal tour date Sunday.

I was looking forward to vacation more than usual this year, my work life having been truly stressed out. While my trips to the Hook were not as frequent as they might have been, I worked quite a bit on the Ajax nosecones for the Parrish's. I will devote a complete post to that project very soon (I'm almost done). For the moment here's a look at the plug being pulled from the mold the night I got back from vacation (it had been left to cure all week).


That forms the basis for the fiberglassing of the new nosecones.

That was last Sunday night. Then Wednesday we hosted the Alaska Nike Veterans. What a great bunch of guys!!! We had the benefit of having one of our own being a member of both groups - Pete DeMarco (who is also VP of our Fort Hancock Nike Association). We took them through all of our areas and turned 'em loose through Fort Hancock and I believe that everyone had a great time (I know I did).

When I got back home and checked my email I was surprised to find a real treasure;
a copy of TM 9-1970-2-35P from Michael Keller. My sincere Thanks!!! This manual has the schematics for the Ajax booster (JATO). All the while I was cutting into things willy nilly, here is the manual of how it should go together. Truly great for a project like this. I passed a copy along to Ed Thelen's site in the event anyone else out there should need this information.

All that on the first week back from vacation and the week not even over. Of course my daily driver decided to have a hissy fit and on the way back from midweek Vet Reunion started spewing steam. That makes both Lincolns the 01 and the 05 deadlined by cooling issues. Ugh! The coolant pipe and the thermostat housing are cast in PLASTIC and at least on the 05, that is what is leaking from a crack in the seam. Wish they made half as good as the twins are made! So Sunday I broke out the Shelby for the run down to the Hook. He doesn't like the summer heat but it was 60 and sunny so the drive was magnificent.


I worked a bunch on Castor but it doesn't look like much. I had to clean up the connecting areas between the tanks - the large grinder can't get in. So I worked the area with a stiff wire wheel. It will still need to be sandblasted for paint-prep but it won't use as much of the abrasive.






Finishing up the day I spent a bit more time on the booster. Good Lord is there a lot of paint on these things. I probably swept up 4 pounds worth, and that was what I could get to easily!


Slowly but surely it's all coming together. After all this I get to do it again on Pollux <g>.
Hey, nobody said it was easy.
'Til next time....

Blazing Skies

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