Hey guys, been a while since i have been here, but recently i have started volenteer work at a new military museum near my house. One of the bigger projects that we are working on right now is everyones favourite, the German 8.8cm Flak or the 88 as it is commonly refered to as. I will post pictures later today but some of you might be saddened to see the condition its in. Thats it for now and i will inform you all of the progrss of the gun same time next week.
It is never sad to look at and watch a restoration project. Iit is sad to watch a a piece of equipment rust away to nothing without being able to do anything about it. I look forward to seeing the "Before" photos, and moreso, to seeing the "After" ones in the future.
The sad part isn't the restoration, its the state of the cannon that its in now, someone put two big cuts in either side of the barrel towards the breech with an oxy torch, two cuts in the breech its self and a cut in the left side bearing.
it was decommissioned but someone decided to go overboard with the oxy even tho a simple cut in the breech would have sufficed.
Here are some of the photos that I promised, some of them show how brutal they were with the oxy torch, the counter poise's and recuperator have been removed earlier. (I didn't have my camera that day)
I can see what you mean. But I am glad to see that she has found a good home. Good luck in getting her restored.
its not going to be easy restoring her I''ll say that much, she's putting up a fight every step of the way. And just out of curiosity Takao, what warship is that in your profile picture?
She's the IJN Chokai, same class as the Takao. I'd been using it over on Axis History Forum since it's 1st iteration many years ago, and kept it when the board upgraded back in 2002. Decided to use it when I joined here since, there are several members on both boards. I never could use any of the photos I liked of the Takao since they didn't correctly scale down to fit the old limit of 125*125, as they were all 2 or 3 times longer than they were high.
I do feel your pain though, the local air museum, the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum, has been restoring a P-61 Black Widow for the past 25 years or so. Recovery: http://www.maam.org/p61/p61_recovery.htm Ongoing restoration: http://www.maam.org/p61/p61_rest.htm
What a great project ! Any restoration like this takes a huge amount of time, but a truly dedicated team can achieve anything ! Do please keep us all updated.......
At the moment its only a group of about 5 people including me who are actualy working on it. We have two other people but they are working on the valentine which is just about finished. And surprisingly the 88 hasnt been that hard to take apart.
Looks like you have your work cut out. At least she has a home now.. Do you have any estimates on how long the restoration will take?
Hopefully a few weeks to just over a month depending on how quick we get things done. First off we need to weld up the cuts, replace the left hand bearing which had been cut by the oxy torch, we need to get the counter poises back together, get all the major parts and the gun its self in for soda blasting then paint it and then get it all back together. So we got a fair bit ahead of us.
Could I get any help identifying this mark? its on most of the internal components in the gauges. I think its a manufacturing mark but im not sure. It looks a bit like this <N> but with a line over the top.
Update time!! The cuts on the barrel and breech have been welded up and the counter poises have been cleaned up and have been re-installed. We are still currently working on the gauges but there its proving to be the hardest part of the restoration. Other than that, all the major pieces should be going into soda blasting very soon. the only bad thing is that the file size for the pictures are all too big so I can only upload one or two at a time.