Marc, Michael, and I headed over to Scott Dennison's hanger at the Waukesha airport. Once there we were greeted by a big beautiful Pullmax. I never thought I would actually see one of these in person. Scott has just about anything you would want to find in a metalshaping shop except for maybe a Yoder power hammer. It was such an honor to actually meet Scott as I've been stalking him on the internet for the last several months (since Michael found him on Facebook). We had a great time looking over all of the tooling that Scott has built. It took me back to the days when my Dad would build tools for us to complete certain tasks, and to my tool building in my own studio and made me realize that I haven't done this kind of thing for a while; this might explain my funk. Anyway, I marveled at some of the brackets and pieces Scott has been making on his MANUAL milling machine as well as the PVC forming dies for many of the complex Corsair parts. His jigs are are a thing of beauty. The 3D printed bucks were great also. I think I could just hang out here for hours up on end and just hope that some of the knowledge might seep into my wee little brain. This is the kind of place I wish I could retire to.
Scott showed us some of the scanned Corsair drawings he has and we'll hopefully be receiving some aileron drawings from him soon. We discussed some small covers that need to be formed and I told him that I should be able to 3D machine some forming dies for him. He just sent the images to me a few minutes ago, so I'll take a stab at this in the coming days. There was just too much stuff to take in here. Scott was too kind to literally waste a few hours talking to us, so I was appreciative of his graciousness. Some other interesting folks dropped by to talk Warbirds and such so my head was spinning by the time I walked out of the hanger. Good times...
So happy we finally got to meet Scott - his accumulated knowledge of metalworking, as well as Marc's knowledge of wood construction is... well, 'humbling' is not strong enough a word.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more. Humbling to the exponential degree!
ReplyDeleteWOW. The things a guy could build in a shop like that!
ReplyDeleteWhat's the deal with Chalkie(?) the twin hydraulic jack press? Looks interesting.
ReplyDelete"This is the kind of place I wish I could retire to."
ReplyDeleteBoy Howdy!
So much to learn, so little time.
let's go together then!
ReplyDeleteNIck,
ReplyDeleteScott is using "Chalkie" to press dies together while he folds the metal over the pvc dies with a delrin hammer tip on an air hammer/chisel. He is also using it to die form long pieces. It's just like our typical Bonny Doon jewelers hydraulic presses, but long to accommodate long tooling and pieces. I WANT one after seeing this one.
Scott is one of the kindest people I've ever known!
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you, Macduff.
ReplyDelete