As many of you know, the Heim joints that you need to install on the ends of the control rods are very stiff and have a tremendous amount of friction in them. The mitigation that needs to be done is to make a high speed drill attachment that will hold the bearing and fit inside a drill chuck. You then need to hold the threaded portion of the bearing housing in a vice or in some other secure manner while you spin up the bearing in the joint. As it heats up, the bearing moves rather freely, but after a short while, it begins to slow as the material expands. As soon as it starts to speed up again, I stop the drill and immediately submerge the bearing in water. The bearing will know move freely with minimal friction.
This process needs to be repeated a couple of dozen times to break in all of the control rods ends required for the ship.
The photos below show the efforts of the next entry.
