Hardened steel and ductile toughness are mutually exclusive.

I keep finding ways to increase my time spare spent working on my plane.

For example, I thought I would give everything under the cowl a good going over last weekend, then go fly. I tightened up a bunch of hose clamps (got lots of those), checked my throttle linkage and magneto connections, saw an o-ring that had worked its way out on the starter housing, so pushed that back in place and tightened the AN-3 housing bolts down on that...SNAP... twisted one bolt off!. Got the EZ-out kit out (why do they call them that anyway?). drilled a very small hole in the 3/16" chunk left in the hole housing....(of course they used a thread locker on that)... worked the EZ-out into the hole and gently twist to remove the remaining bolt...SNAP!...broke off the EZ-out, removed the starter housing from the engine, and took it home to my shop with some diamond mills and milled out the EZ-out and most of the bolt end, started chasing the threads with a tap, twisting the tap by hand...SNAP!...twisted off the tap, more diamond milling, finally, got a workable hole, bought another tap, drilled out the hole, successfully tapped a new hole, put the starter back together. Mission successful...wasted 3 days of Coronavirus isolation time, just getting back to where I was last Saturday.

Sorry no flight report, but a cautionary tale that when using those hardened steel tools: they flex a little, but they snap off easier than you think they will and the consequences get worse each time they do.

Cheers,
Jay

-----Original Message-----
From: main@Q-List.groups.io <main@Q-List.groups.io> On Behalf Of Bruce Crain
Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2020 11:47 AM
To: main@q-list.groups.io
Subject: Re: [Q-List] Cowl Exit

Something every day Richard.  Even if you just tidy up or move tools around.  It keeps you moving ahead.
B

On Mar 31, 2020, at 3:39 AM, Richard Thomson <richard@...> wrote:

 

Thanks Bruce,  now I see, only problem is I need to make a new gear leg fairing first .

 

More isolationist activities to do.

 

Rich T

 

 

On 30/03/2020 22:05, Bruce Crain wrote:

Here is a good picture of how I mounted the red baffling material.

 

Airventure is only 4 months away!  Makes for a great reason to work hard and get em dome!  Also Spring Fling and Field Of Dreams are two other great “get away” parties!

 

Bruce Crain