A Tale of Penetrating Oil and Corrosion

The penetrating oils worked & the nuts, four of them, came off easily using 3/4" drive sockets and breaker bars. That released the static display Vought A7 from its pylon & we lifted it off and trucked it to a hangar to begin its restoration.



The "spiral shaped rust" will be examined in the next few days to assess the integrity of the steel rods, and if the rust is deeper than just surface rust, we'll have to jackhammer the pylon down a few feet and replace the rods with stainless steel when we put the jet back up about a year from now.

 

Yes it is.

We've been restoring the Main Gate A4 that got blown off its pylon in 2008 and now have added the East Gate A7 to the project as a precaution against it, too, finding itself a sudden glider in a high wind. We should have the A4 back on display early this Fall; the A7 will take at least a year to get back in shape (it's very severely corroded).