I finally got to tour the restoration hangar at the Air Force Museum in Dayton

Seeing them hand-form a new skin panel for a B-17 with basic tools was a real throwback. How many of you still do major sheet metal work like that, or is it all composite repair now?

3 comments

3 Comments

michael8801mo ago

Wow, that's incredible craftsmanship. We still do a fair bit of metal work on the older birds in the fleet. Composites are everywhere now, but the old skills are still vital.

christopher8671mo ago

Hand-forming a B-17 skin panel with basic tools sounds like pure wizardry to me.

michaelrodriguez20d ago

Wait, have you ever tried to get a dent out of an old pickup truck hood with nothing but a hammer and a block of wood? @michael880 probably knows that kind of stuff is just as much art as science.