Pietenpol-List: Re:Welding of telescoping landing gear legs.

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Original Posted By: "Gene Rambo"
I'm trying to weld the "t-shaped" landing gear members for the bungees-typegears on my Grega. Per the plans. Some of you may have run into thisproblem, too.The upper arm is .75 -.049 tubing. the lower arm is .875 - .035 tubing(note it's ID is plenty). The upper arm is supposed to telescope (slide)into the lower one. Small cross members are welded on both lower and upperarms about 5 inches or so apart to form a "T" on each member. The bungeesthen wrap around the T's providing a telescoping unit that ties the axle tothe bottom of the fuse (OK , sort of, this is getting too hard todescribe).Herein lies the problem.I am welding with Acetylene torch, so when I weld the T"s unto the LOWERleg (you know the bigger one that the smaller slides into), the slag(?)accumulates just enough on the inside to prohibit the upper leg from slidingfreely. I'm not a bad welder so I feel like I am not putting too much heatinto the tubing. It just seems that there should be a better way.Is there any sort of reamer that would be wide enough to run down through it(kind a like Roto Rooter for homebuilts) after the welding is complete?Could a machine shop do this.Would it be better to wire weld this part?I could just make it a FIXED gear Grega......Thanks for the help,bert________________________________________________________________________________

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Original Posted By: "Doug"
You can ream it, but you remove a lot of metal in the area that you leastwant to -- adjacent to the weld. The best thing to do is put a piece ofthe smaller tubing inside before you weld (usually a scrap piece, but notnecessarily) After welding, the inside tube comes out, and the slag is notbuilt up to where it will keep the next tube from sliding in. If you havealready done all welding and do not want to redo, take a piece of weldingrod and crimp it around a strip of coarse sandpaper. Chuck the welding rodin a hand drill and go at it. You will eventually ream out the slag.________________________________________________________________________________

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Original Posted By: Conoly
I used a brake cylinder hone in mine to clean them up as i recall. Doug Hunt-----Original Message-----

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Original Posted By: "Gene Rambo"
Thanks, guys, for the responses!I've got several good ideas here. Once this CCCOOLLDD weather moves on off(the southeast is about to take a hit and we are not used to this), I willget back out in the shop and try them. I'll have those bungees working in acouple weeks. See Ya, Bert----- Original Message -----

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Original Posted By: "Gene Rambo"
Hey Gene, The trick of using the coarse sanpaper worked great, thanks!Bert (who now has at least one telescoping landing gear....)----- Original Message -----