Today the river of airplane parts is flowing again with the arrival of my Oshkosh Aircraft Spruce order. I added the dimpled nutplates to the little boot cowl piece, and used my new fuel lube to install several NPT thread fittings that were on hold pending its arrival.
Since my repaired elevator trim pushrods didn’t bend so well, I also ordered more tubing to make new ones. This time I started with the bend, figuring that I could do the trimming and welding afterwards. This made much more sense than trying to get an accurately located bend after the ends were already in place. I tried making the bend on my imperial tubing bender, though it is certainly not designed for that kind of abuse. I used the specifications in the Beartracks issue to make a cardboard template, then put one arm of the tube bender in the vice. It took a fair amount of force, and I wouldn’t want to do it more than twice, but it worked pretty well.
Isn’t it fun when all of the new parts come in?