White lead & castor oil on prop shaft?

On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 08:58:17 -0700, wright1902glider
wrote:

While attempting to distract myself from 8 hours of filing documents
on Friday, I Youtubed up the Republic / Air Corps training film on how
to field assemble the P-47 Thunderbolt. (Where I work, that's called
multi-tasking.) In the film, they describe coating the prop shaft of
the R-2800 with the "perscribed mixture" of white lead and castor oil
before installing the prop.

Just out of curiousity, how would someone comply with this procedure
now? Castol oil is easy enough to get, but white lead? Substitutes?
And what exactly does the white lead do? Does it act as a packing or
anti-corosive?

I've found that when restoring or reproducing vintage things,
attempting to find the correct materials is a real challenge, if not
impossible. When I built my Wright machine, the only easy materials to
find were the steel rod, sheet, and wire.

Harry Frey


I'm going to guess as a packing. The only other use of white lead that
I've heard of is for filling the weave on the canvas of a canoe before
painting.

On Aug 20, 10:05 pm, (Drew Dalgleish)
wrote:

I'm going to guess as a packing. The only other use of white lead that
I've heard of is for filling the weave on the canvas of a canoe before
painting.

Many years ago I used white lead in the restoration of the roof of a
wooden railway car. We used the traditional method of stretching
canvas over the wooden roof, soaking it with a paste of white lead and
linseed oil,and nailing it before it shrank.With occasional painting,
it lasted outdoors for over 20 years.

John Halpenny

"John Halpenny" wrote in message ups.com...
On Aug 20, 10:05 pm, (Drew Dalgleish)
wrote:

I'm going to guess as a packing. The only other use of white lead that
I've heard of is for filling the weave on the canvas of a canoe before
painting.

Many years ago I used white lead in the restoration of the roof of a
wooden railway car. We used the traditional method of stretching
canvas over the wooden roof, soaking it with a paste of white lead and
linseed oil,and nailing it before it shrank.With occasional painting,
it lasted outdoors for over 20 years.

John Halpenny



And for heaven's sake, please make sure no one eats it! ;-)

On Aug 27, 10:09 am, "Blueskies"
wrote:
"John Halpenny" wrote in oglegroups.com...
On Aug 20, 10:05 pm, (Drew Dalgleish)
wrote:

I'm going to guess as a packing. The only other use of white lead that
I've heard of is for filling the weave on the canvas of a canoe before
painting.

Many years ago I used white lead in the restoration of the roof of a
wooden railway car. We used the traditional method of stretching
canvas over the wooden roof, soaking it with a paste of white lead and
linseed oil,and nailing it before it shrank.With occasional painting,
it lasted outdoors for over 20 years.

John Halpenny

And for heaven's sake, please make sure no one eats it! ;-)

I thought that was the whole idea of the lead. Wouldn't it offer
protection against mould, fungus and various tiny critters that want
to eat the canvas? I've often wondered if that was not also an
advantage of lead in paints.

John Halpenny

On Aug 20, 3:58 pm, wright1902glider wrote:
...

I've found that when restoring or reproducing vintage things,
attempting to find the correct materials is a real challenge, if not
impossible. When I built my Wright machine, the only easy materials to
find were the steel rod, sheet, and wire.


A few years ago I got involved late in a project to make Wright Flyer
replica wings. We covered one and left the cloth folded back on the
other to display the internal construction. The wings are now in the
museum at Kitty Hawk.

Some of the wood was ash the rest spruce. Ash is available locally
throughout most of the Northeaster quarter of the US, I don't know
where the spruce came from. I was told that the Wright Brothers
had theirs shipped in from West Virginia as spruce is not native
to Western Ohio. The cotton muslin was bought from a company
that made it for filter bags. We used Aluminum sheet nstead of
tin. I don't remember where we got the string, but do recall that
it was waxed and sticky.

--

FF