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[Mark Appel]

It might be worth re-scanning the cover photo using, if you have it, the "descreen" function on your scanner software.  Epson and Canon scanners offer that option.

A person far wiser than I* in the ways of digital imaging suggested just that. I don't have a scanner -- I borrowed one to image to cover and didn't have an opportunity to try all the options with that one.  When I have a chance to work on this, which may be a while, I will see what I can do with a better scanner than the one I first tried with. 

~~~
*--or is it than me? Hmmnn....

I'm afraid there's nothing in the original other than large, crude dots. It's going to be challenge to come up with anymore information in that photo, but a noble effort nonetheless...

English language... The perpetual grammatical civil war. Probably "than I..." But I side with Winston Churchill, to wit: "That is the sort of English up with which I will not put..."

[JNev]

It might be worth re-scanning the cover photo using, if you have it, the "descreen" function on your scanner software.  Epson and Canon scanners offer that option.

A person far wiser than I* in the ways of digital imaging suggested just that. I don't have a scanner -- I borrowed one to image to cover and didn't have an opportunity to try all the options with that one.  When I have a chance to work on this, which may be a while, I will see what I can do with a better scanner than the one I first tried with. 

~~~
*--or is it than me? Hmmnn....

Steve,

Thanks for your work in finding this item and for whatever you can do.  It is interesting historic stuff.

[Ric Gillespie]

A new issue of TIGHAR Tracks with the full illustrated Artifact 2-2-V-1 Commission Report is now at the printers and should be ready for mailing later this week.  Once TIGHAR members have their copies in hand we'll post the report on the TIGHAR website.

[Kevin Weeks]

So where do you find one inch rivet pitch in .032" skin on an Electra?

Dunno yet. Stay tuned.

isn't that a fairly easy thing to discern??

Yes, if you have a Lockheed Electra handy.  Do you happen to have one?

what locations on the plane are being evaluated for a match?? the skin only??

The use of aerodynamically-friendly brazier rivets strongly suggests that the artifact is part of the external skin of some airplane.

well, I assumed you had already been over the electra with a fine tooth comb... but as I have said in the past I live within 15 minutes drive of the New England Air museum. If you can get me access, a copy of the artifact to utilize I would be more than happy to donate my time.

get me a piece of velum with the rivet locations traced out and I will give you the answer within a weekend. I'm sure I can find several friends that would each love to have their own piece of velum to scour the skin of the 10A....

the museum just moved their DC-3 off display and into the restoration hanger so that might prove interesting as well.

[Hal Beck]

get me a piece of velum with the rivet locations traced out and I will give you the answer within a weekend. I'm sure I can find several friends that would each love to have their own piece of velum to scour the skin of the 10A....

the museum just moved their DC-3 off display and into the restoration hanger so that might prove interesting as well.

Ric,

What about the Harney drawings?

If they are sufficiently accurate regarding the rivets, they could be used to find candidate locations.  Maybe you could set up a working group like you did with the Aerial Photos or the Oral Transcripts to examine the Harney Drawings. Having a couple of pairs of eyeballs on this might be a good way to go. Give the group a set of criteria to weed out non-candidate locations and see what they come up with.

[Kevin Weeks]

get me a piece of velum with the rivet locations traced out and I will give you the answer within a weekend. I'm sure I can find several friends that would each love to have their own piece of velum to scour the skin of the 10A....

the museum just moved their DC-3 off display and into the restoration hanger so that might prove interesting as well.

Ric,

What about the Harney drawings?

If they are sufficiently accurate regarding the rivets, they could be used to find candidate locations.  Maybe you could set up a working group like you did with the Aerial Photos or the Oral Transcripts to examine the Harney Drawings. Having a couple of pairs of eyeballs on this might be a good way to go. Give the group a set of criteria to weed out non-candidate locations and see what they come up with.

How has Ric tried to match rivet patterns in the past?? ... he's had this piece for 25 years now and has not been able to match it to anything. The very first thing that comes to my mind when I am trying to find a match to a pattern of holes is an overlay... simple, cheap easy extremely accurate (we used them here in our aerospace machine shop to verify shapes in a shadow graph).

what was used to "match" at the last museum trip he took?? just a tape measure or ruler?? using velum literally anyone can match up a pattern. I could get a troop of boy scouts together and go over entire planes easily with enough patterns.

[Monty Fowler]

It's a bit more complicated than making a template. Our current Favorite Piece of Aluminum has been badly distorted across several different axis' - which means that a simple template may, or may not, be an accurate representation of how it originally appeared when it is smoothed out.

I believe planning for a field trip to go over the New England Electra is in the works, along with about a bazillion other things Ric is currently doing. Until you've actually tried to do it yourself, I'd be careful about asserting that such a template search can be done quickly and thoroughly. One thing I learned at the NMUSAF is that aircraft from the 1930s-1940s were complex critters, with lots of subtle shapes to even the largest and apparently "flattest" areas.

LTM, who finds dry paint really interesting right now, grass growing less so,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 CER

[Kevin Weeks]

It's a bit more complicated than making a template. Our current Favorite Piece of Aluminum has been badly distorted across several different axis' - which means that a simple template may, or may not, be an accurate representation of how it originally appeared when it is smoothed out.

I believe planning for a field trip to go over the New England Electra is in the works, along with about a bazillion other things Ric is currently doing. Until you've actually tried to do it yourself, I'd be careful about asserting that such a template search can be done quickly and thoroughly. One thing I learned at the NMUSAF is that aircraft from the 1930s-1940s were complex critters, with lots of subtle shapes to even the largest and apparently "flattest" areas.

LTM, who finds dry paint really interesting right now, grass growing less so,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 CER

I'm not unfamiliar with the template process, having been involved in automotive restoration since I was a boy. I currently own a 1928 ford and a 1932 ford. I made a paper template just last winter to fix a hood that had been cut to fit an out of square car. Templates are just templates. curves are nothing more than a series of slices or tucks to the template.  The reality is, you don't care about the curves very much. 2-2-V-1 has an unknown original shape. all we can do is match what is there with a reasonably close template that will fit a wide variety of panels.  you slide it over the panel to quickly get a feel for the fit. it's visual, the human mind matches things into patterns like this extremely efficiently.

[Ric Gillespie]

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. 
   

[Ric Gillespie]

What about the Harney drawings?

Not accurate enough.  We've found errors in the skinning pattern.  Bill Harney did a great job but the level of precision in his drawings is not sufficient for this kind of research.

[Ric Gillespie]

I live within 15 minutes drive of the New England Air museum. If you can get me access, a copy of the artifact to utilize I would be more than happy to donate my time.

Thanks but, as Monty mentioned, we're presently scheduling a research trip to NEAM for as many of the Artifact 2-2-V-1 Commission members as may be able to participate.  I'll let the forum know when we get the date set so that you, or any other forum member, participate.

[Hal Beck]

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. 
 

Ric,

In terms of possibility #2, is there anything about 2-2-V-1 itself that indicates that it is part of a repair?  When the operative idea was that the 'AD' marking indicated 'special stock' aluminum used for repairs, that was the case, but we have seen lots of 'AD' markings on original WW2 skin at this point. Is there some other feature of 2-2-V-1 that suggests it was part of a repair? 

[Ric Gillespie]

Is there some other feature of 2-2-V-1 that suggests it was part of a repair?

Yes.  Aris Scarla noted that while the pitch of the #3 rivet holes is precisely one inch, there is some variation in the lines of rivet holes suggesting that the underlying structural members were not jig-straight (as they should be if it was undamaged original construction).  It is his opinion that the artifact is probably from an area that had been repaired.

[JNev]

I still see "repair" in this artifact, not original, all respect to those who may differ.

Well laid out, yes - but the variance in lines Ric mentioned is one key - as are the occasional bastard sized holes.

Just MHO, of course, but been there, done that to a number of airplanes over 35 years.

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

"Yes.  Aris Scarla noted that while the pitch of the #3 rivet holes is precisely one inch, there is some variation in the lines of rivet holes suggesting that the underlying structural members were not jig-straight (as they should be if it was undamaged original construction).  It is his opinion that the artifact is probably from an area that had been repaired."

In a way that helps to narrow down the area on an airplane from which the artefact could have come from. Anywhere which would have affected the planes flight characteristics, wings, vertical stabiliser, tailplane etc... would have required a perfect repair, yes? Not simply re-skinning but replacement of the underlying structural members also to bring it all back to true and trim. So a fuselage repair seems the most likeliest location for this artefact under those circumstances.