I got some more time in the shop this evening. First I skip-welded the stop rings on the control stick assembly. Then I finished the work on the elevator belcrank halves. I drilled two 7/8ths holes using a step bit and cut out the middle between the two holes to make the oval hole in the assembly. I then smoothed out all the edges on both pieces.
Then came the tedious process of making six 3/8ths washers out of .050 and welding them in place. This is one job that I have to be careful of and don’t really care for. One thing I did was use clecos to hold the washers in place to tack weld them. This is the first time I tried this and it worked out great!
The heat control for the TIG is critical so I don't burn off the edges of the metal, but when I’m operating at that low of an amperage my auto-darkening helmet sometimes deactivates while welding or doesn’t activate at all. The plasma arc is still way too bright to look at and I have to stop or I may burn through the metal without knowing it. It was rather annoying and I saw plenty of blue spots, like looking into a flash on a camera when it goes off. Finally got it done. I’ll continue in the next few days by making the pivot and welding that to the fuselage. One more step!
