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Reply to "Continuing Saga …"

Thanks!

The S-38 parts have been delivered to Epic Powder Coating here in Louisville to have it glass bead blasted to remove all that crappy paint and prepare it for soldering. I gave up on chemical stripping in the basement due to lots of factors not limited to smell and how aggressive it is. It ate through nitrile gloves!

I was unhappy with the fit of the right faceplate assembly on the lathe. In the process of cleaning off the old CA I dropped it on the concrete. It was the brittle resin and fractured into three pieces: each bearing support and the faceplate. I glued it back together with CA, but it was no longer properly aligned. This bugged me so I grew another. This one is out of the new resin. 

Before growing I fixed the drawing. The floor of one of the bolt counterbores was missing so the bolt didn't print. I also rechecked the support structure and added some to the locking bolt on bearing support front. As a result the print was perfect. Today I will paint and reassemble. I'm also making the concrete sub-base shown below the bed. This will negate the need to cut a hole in the machine shop floor to accommodate the lower gear shaft. Notice too that the carriage has both hand wheels formed which is because I added a support under the front hand wheel.

EH MS WL New End and Foundation

I finished the re-made outdoor light and primed it. Today I'll paint that too and attempt (again) to install all those new lights. I've tested this light three times and know that it's working. Notice the brass sleeve (white arrow). Even my second printing of the bases was the wrong set. It was still the base where the lug wasn't actually part of the base. Instead of printing another set, I simply glued in a piece of 1/4" brass tubing. The dimensions on the grown part are very accurate.

EH Remade Light

Since this building is destined to be another article, I was unhappy about having the wheel lathe with sub-par quality. It just didn't work for me.

I also bought some more materials for the S-38 restoration and found out some not-so-good things. One is that both landing gear are missing. I wondered what those two 1/4" threaded holes were doing on the engine nacelles. The S-38 had retractable landing gear that were a bit weird, like the entire plane. They didn't fold into a well; they just folded flat in front of the wing. The gear had a long, airfoil-faired strut that extended to the nacelles, and a triangular arrangement that tied at the bottom to the fuselage. They sent me a picture taken in the 80s that clearly showed the landing gear being present. I think I will produce these via 3D printing. They won't support any weight. Ideally, they should be printed with wax resin and then investment cast out of brass. I don't believe their budget would support that. There's also a bunch of short struts holding the front of the engine to the wing that are missing. In this picture, it appears that the landing gear are supporting the weight on the front and a lug is holding up the rear. The gear may have disappeared before the great fall since they were supporting the front with two more bolts hastily drilled and tapped with a piece of copper pipe surrounding them. Or they may have been so damaged as to be unworkable necessitating the gerry-rigged suspension. I'm going to keep the solid suspension and use the landing gear as decorative only.

S-38 Missing Parts

This job keeps getting more complicated. I bought some MAP gas to get more heat in my torch. I needed to get more heat and a colleague directed me to AirGas for soldering supplies. They only sell welding materials, but directed me to an HVAC supplier. At this vendor I bought the MAP and then in a discussion with some patrons and a sales person discussed keeping heat off of parts I didn't want to de-solder and was shown (and bought) a heat absorbing paste that protects parts very near hot work. They use it to protect sensitive controls and valves when silver soldering lines right next to them. I didn't know such a thing existed and it will save me lots of angst. I was going to us wet rags and paper towels which are flammable.

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  • EH MS WL New End and Foundation
  • S-38 Missing Parts
  • EH Remade Light

OGR Publishing, Inc., 1310 Eastside Centre Ct, Suite 6, Mountain Home, AR 72653
800-980-OGRR (6477)
www.ogaugerr.com

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