NASAM Update as of the 30th Nov 2024
In This Edition
Summary of Contents
In this edition of the blog “Museum News” we have photos of an interesting trio of motorcycles that visited the Museum. The photos were taken by Joe.
From the Teams “Inside and Outside – The Museum“, we have a triple update this time from Barry, as the Paint Team continue their painting and now applying decals around the Museum … Decal, for our edification, is short for “decalcomania”, and that’s a new word for me and for the blog.
Gary has booked another event at the Museum in 2025: the Norfolk Internal Combustion Engine Society Day at the Museum. This and other events are listed in “Event Information“.
Pete S
Museum News
General news from the Museum
Motorcycle Visitors 17-11-24
An interesting trio of motorcycles paid a visit to the Museum on Sunday, the 17th of November, 2024. These included a real classic in the New Hudson m/c.
(Photos) Visitors 17-11-24
Next Opening Days
Apart from two days in December, the Museum is now going to be closed until the 19th of February for our winter maintenance period. The two days we are open over the festive break are Friday and Saturday, the 27th and 28th of December 2024, when the Museum will be open from 1000 to 1500.
Pete S
Inside and Outside – The Museum
Information from the various teams
Paint Team Updates
12/11/24 – Let’s go decaling!
New Flixton verb. ‘Decaling’ or to ‘decal’ – being the process of cutting vinyl decals, followed by weeding, followed by application of transfer tape, followed by fitting to the airframe, followed by much relief (if we got them on straight!)
Yes folks, this week was decals week with the completion of the Proof of Concept exercise on the Grasshopper markings. The day started off with Mark firing up the Cutter in the Paper Store and sending ‘Inkcut’ jobs to cover the markings on the Grasshopper’s fuselage and tail.
Having tweaked the cutting depth a bit, it was over to Barry to ‘weed’ away the excess vinyl in Gary’s (nice warm) office. Mark then joined Barry to apply the transfer tape, prior to fitting.
By lunchtime, the red fuselage ground brace was wearing it’s ‘NOT TO FLY’ decals (see pic 17). In the arvo, decals were fitted to both sides of the tail and the upper fuselage (see pic 18). It was a painstaking job and one that could not be rushed, for the fear of tearing a decal in the process.
By close of play, the Grasshopper fuselage/tail was complete (see pic 19), save for one marking that Inkcut didn’t cut the way it had been drawn in Inkscape. More learning required.
In other news, the Skipper (Cliff) was on H&S duty, while Private Walker (Ian) painted the ‘cut off’ antennae of the Sea Prince in several coats of yellow. The Queen of Green (Gwen) was also dispatched to paint a new cabinet in Room 3.
18/11/24 – Ensalada mixta!
This week was a bit of a mixed salad, with a little bit of everything thrown in. A chilly day kicked off with Mark and Barry cutting a replacement decal for the Grasshopper Glider up in the BP Hangar. During last week’s Proof of Concept, Inkcut failed to cut a dashed rectangle correctly. After a bit of further learning of Inkscape, the correct box was cut this week. Mark and Barry then applied said decals to the Grasshopper (see pic 20) using our new ‘low tack’ application tape and that was job done (see pic 21).
Somewhere deep in the bowels of the museum, Ian started his day by giving the Sea Prince’s cut off (by Tony) roof antennae several more coats of Buttercup Yellow (see pic 22), in order to get a decent depth of colour.
By mid-morning, Mark and Barry had moved over to the Scout Car to re-apply the Mickey Mouse ears camo scheme to the port side. The previous attempt, which involved using a black rattle can resulted in the underlying paint lifting, plus a rather ‘squiffy’ set of ears. This time round, the boys decided to go back to basics and firstly lightly ‘key’ the side and front panels, before applying a coat of grey primer (see pic 23). Don’t worry folks, this is only a temporary colour scheme, we are not switching the Scout to Arctic camo, although that might be fun. With the temperature today around 5 degrees C, the grey primer took a long time to dry and so we’ll be back next week to reinstate the Khaki, followed by the ‘ears’ probably the week after that.
Having run out of antennae, Ian went in search of other work and was soon directed towards the gates for the Adair Walk, that need re-painting. Ian then spent the rest of the day prepping one of the gates (see pic 24), ready for a coat of Green Hammerite.
In the arvo, Mark and Barry spent some time sorting out the Paint Store (doing nothing worthy of a photo). Now that we have our new vinyl cutter in the Paper Store, the old Ault & Wiborg manual stencil cutters; that weigh an absolute tonne; were moved out of the Paint Store and round to the metal recycling pile out the back of the Restoration Workshop. After that, all the Pressure Washers and lances were drained of water and put away for the winter, so that there is no risk of any frost damage to them.
26/11/24 – Mark gets the runs!
Fear not readers, this was not the aftermath of some ill-advised Monday night Madras. Oh no, this was a bad case of runs in the paintwork.
Down at the Scout Car and after last week’s priming, Mark picked up where he left off and gave the Scout car port side and front a topcoat of Kakki! Yes, I use that term advisedly. Having discovered that the remainder of the tin of Khaki had gone solid, Mark went into solution mode and found some old Brown gloss that he then proceeded to tint down with a bit of matt Black. The end result was a near perfect match to the rest of the Scout Car (see pic 25). The only trouble being that the Kakki didn’t seem to want skin over and was very runny. Hence quite a bit of time was spent dry rolling out the runs forming off rivets and bolt heads. Hopefully by next Tuesday, the Kakki will have dried enabling us to re-apply the black Mighty Mouse camo.
Elsewhere, Barry started off the day by fixing a small aperture in the Sea Pest’s roof flashing with a splurge of CT1 to plug up the gap.
In the (warmer) Restoration Workshop, Ian and Gwen could be found continuing with the prep of the Adair Walk gates and archway (see pic 26). The sanding and wire-wheeling was finished by lunchtime and next week we should be able to apply some Hammerite.
Also during the day, there was a conversation with the Chippies about creating some sort of plywood template to enable us to cut 3 and 4 foot roundels (currently too wide for our vinyl cutter). This would then enable us to be able to produce the vast majority of the decals required to complete the Sea Prince and the Valetta ourselves.
In the afternoon, there was also a conversation with John and Roger about what to do with the Bloodhound, given its current poor presentation. After a lengthy discussion and suggestions ranging from send it to the salvage breakers to possibly lowering the missile and then painting it, John took an action to get a quote from the BBC to media blast and wet jet paint it (i.e. broadly the same process as the Valetta). To be continued.
Barry
(Photos) Paint Team Update
Event Information
What next at the Museum
Events for 2025
In addition to reopening on Wednesday, the 19th of February 2025, Gary, the museum manager, is already planning various events, and we have a list of dates that you may wish to put in your diaries. One additional date that Gary has added to the event list is the Norfolk Internal Combustion Engine Society Day on the 27th of April 2024. This will be shared with the MG Car Club Drive It Day. The planning calendar now looks like:
Pete S
The Repeat Info
Here we are near the end of 2024 and the repeat information is still here I’m afraid, and I make no apologies for keeping his section in our blog. We are a charitable organisation relying on monies from the public to keep us going. Any help we receive is gratefully accepted and enables the museum to continue in our mission “To conserve, preserve and promote the history of aviation in East Anglia, whilst providing a fun, family-friendly and interactive museum, promoting education and remembrance of the events of the past“.
Are you thinking of helping ??
We save money by having a dedicated group of volunteers that keep the museum and the exhibits both manned and maintained. We hope therefore a few people may consider helping in the ways below.
There are three easy ways to help: Help by becoming a Museum Member, also by Volunteering to help at the museum, or by Donating to assist with our running costs. Please click on the appropriate button below to access the appropriate information:
Click to see how to becomeMUSEUM MEMBER Click to see how to becomeMUSEUM VOLUNTEER 
Click to make aDONATION
Keep Up To Date
To keep up to date with further information, please keep an eye on our Social Media (see the Social Media buttons at the foot of this blog) or click on the button below to be notified by email of any upcoming changes by seeing the latest blog.
Go to the form forEMAIL NOTIFICATIONS
Pete S
