Fw: [TowerTalk] have you ever used a

[Roger Borowski - K9RB]

>Jim,
>
>The mechanical tailpipe stretcher you mention, if its like the one I own,
is
>not really powerful enough to accomplish sizing to the next level without
>considerable heat and hammering, along with a lot of lubrication. A messy
>and difficult situation at best. To accomplish this for the 2" situation
for
>booms, I had machined a piece in a lathe that works considerably better. I
>took a 6" piece of 2" OD solid steel round bar and machined one end to 1
>7/8" for the first 1 1/2", then blended the difference between the two OD's
>for the next 1 1/2", leaving the final 3" at the original 2" OD. On this
end
>I drilled and tapped a thread which attached to my 5# slide hammer driver
>rod and use it to impact it inside the tubing to full depth. This also
takes
>some doing and plenty of lubrication, but is far easier than the tailpipe
>stretcher, which does an admirable job on repairing damaged tailpipe ends,
>but doesn't really stretch tubing very well. My method leaves a really nice
>flare. You can beat the "forming die" in with a large hammer and use the
>slide hammer to remove it. If all this is too much for you to consider,
just
>take your tubing to any muffler shop in your area that makes their own
>pipes, most do these days....Midas, Meineke, etc. and they have a hydraulic
>expander on the end of their tubing bender, for just this purpose, that has
>infinite adjustment and is a rather simple operation to expand tubing to
any
>desired size. I would imagine the charge for this would be very nominal as
>it would take only 30 seconds to accomplish. I once had an adapter made by
>them to transition a HyGain Rotor 2 1/16" OD to 1 1/4" water pipe (don't
>remember the exact ID?...I think 1 5/8") for a guy with only a two meter
>beam  and vertical above the small diameter section of Rohn 20. They used a
>foot long piece of heavy wall aluminized 1 5/8" ID tubing and charged $5
for
>it all formed to my specs. and ready to go. It took them longer to find and
>cut off the appropriate size tubing than to form it to 2 1/16" OD on one
end
>and hand it to me! 73, and good luck, Jim.       -=Roger-K9RB=-

(Clay Co. -nr. Jacksonville)

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Jim White, K4OJ <k4oj@ij.net>
>To: towertalk <towertalk@contesting.com>
>Date: Sunday, September 20, 1998 9:49 AM
>Subject: [TowerTalk] have you ever used a Tailpipe Stretcher
>>
>>...a coupla weeks ago someone put J C Whitneys web page up here and I
>>told them I wanted a catalog.....thanks whoever did that....
>>
>>I see some interesting tools in there, including something called a
>>tailpipe stretcher.
>>
>>The tool is used to fix off round tailpipes back to round and also to
>>stretch tailpipes which will be slip fit over each other...i.e. it is
sorta
>>like the inverted of a swaged (sp?) section on a piece of tubing like you
>>have on multiple piece booms.
>>
>>This might work to take a 2" OD boom and open it up so that its 2" on the
>>ID and would be useful if you were making long booms.
>>
>> It is billed as a low-cost alternative to hydraulic stretchers
>>and works for 1 5/8" up to 2 7/16"
>>
>>Any thoughts on if this would work on aluminum booms??????
>>
>>.it ain't free, it is 69.99.....but that is a lot cheaper than making
>>material swaged!
>>
>>73,
>>
>>Jim, K4OJ
>>k4oj@ij.net
>>




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