How has Ric tried to match rivet patterns in the past??
Templates, overlays. Lots of them. And "rubbings" of rivet patterns on various aircraft, including several Lockheed 10s.
... he's had this piece for 25 years now and has not been able to match it to anything.
That's right. So either I'm bone stupid (a possibility which I readily acknowledge) or matching this thing is harder than it seems like it should be. Distortion due to the damage could be a complicating factor. It is also seems to be the case that there is no place on a Lockheed 10, or any other aircraft we have looked at, that matches the rivet pattern on the artifact. So one of three things must be true:
1. The artifact exactly matches some place on some airplane that we have not yet examined.
2. The artifact is from an area on some airplane that was repaired or modified in such a way that the area ended up looking different than that same area on a stock example of the airplane.
3. 2-2-V-1 is part of an airplane at all.
Of these, I think we can forget #3. Everything about the artifact screams airplane. Possibility #1 is looking less and less likely. I'd say #2 is by far the most likely reason we have not been able to find a match. So we have to find a place on some aircraft that could reasonably be repaired or modified in such a way that the area ended up looking like 2-2-V-1. That's not easy, and the task has been complicated by misinformation. For example, everyone (including the NTSB Lab) thought that the rivet lines taper. They don't. Aric Scarla proved that in Dayton. We also learned for the first time that in looking for a match, it's okay if the space between lines of rivets varies slightly from original specs but the rivet pitch must remain the same. In other words, as our information gets better the rules of the matching game change.