Flying Pig's pitted Rudder Shaft adventure
 

"Rick Morel" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 11:34:02 -0400, "Flying Pig"
wrote in part:

Has anyone had experience in out-of-round shafts to say whether the
standard
packing will do its job? If I were to do a lot of shoeshining, I think I
could attack the flats/ridges, but probably not get it perfectly round no
matter how I danced around the circumference to avoid irregularity...

This part I can address. Unfortunately the answer is no, it will not
do the job.

As the high spots go by, they will compress the flax, or move it out
of the way if you will. The flax will not "bounce back" as the low
spots go by, leaving a gap.

Thick of a rubber ball and a ball of packing material. Hit the rubber
ball with a hammer and it compresses, than resumes its original shape
/ Hit the ball of flax with a hammer and you have a disk with rounded
edges. Remember the "trick" of fitting too thick flax by rolling a
pipe on it to flatten?

Rick

Hi, Rick, and thanks for the note. It confirms my fears mentioned in the
original thread, despite the other suggestions that OOR isn't an issue.

However, in the "ping skip" thread, I'm developing alternatives to doing it
up right, which is either grinding down to good, or turning down to good,
welding up and remachining.

Here's a couple I'm in contact with so far:

http://www.cfsusa.net/category/services/
http://www.ontheroadmachining.com/shaft.php
http://community.hydroevent.com/inde...on=showProduct
http://www.michstpump.com/contact.htm
http://medleymachine.com/companyinfo.htm

I have inquiries into several FL companies which do this sort of work,
albeit on hugely larger scales. I'm hopeful, including that I might even be
able to, with proper scheduling, drive it there and back after having the
work done while I watch, which would be my preference, anyway, given my
penchant for recording everything which happens to Flying Pig, whether by me
or someone else :{))

If I fail in that, I'll do what several sources (which I contacted in trying
to achieve the above, before discovering those thanks to Vic Smith and
Wally) have said, including the TDS of Devcon's Steel Putty Epoxy, which is
to sandblast, pressure wash (to remove any possible salt contamination), and
use the Devcon Plastic Steel Epoxy.

One of my sources who used epoxy (Belzona, unavailable in personal
quantities) on rudder shafts still in the rudder specified that they do,
indeed, sand green to minimize effort before final finishing. That same
source was one who confirmed the sandblast/anti-salt prep. I think, should
it come to that, using a drop off 2" aluminum half-pipe, moved up and down,
vs the "shoeshine" modus, as my sanding guide, that I can come very close.
Your concerns have my attention, but I suspect that something a couple of
thousandths out of perfect would be light-years better than what I have...

L8R

Skip

--

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
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