Cold men unite! Shrinking really is a bane for the male of the human species and it's reared it's ugly head today. My blue ring that sits at the base of the dome is too big for the inner dome and this seems to be a common occurrence with this particular item. Options for a cure so far have been to pack/shim the ring, cut loose on the inner dome with a hammer, cut and shut the ring or shrink it. Seeing as how I floated the idea of shrinking on the astromech forum in the first place, I figured I better do some tests to see if this theory would fly. Here’s the story…
First off, I measured the gap I had between the blue ring and the inner dome. This was .125” across the diameter. Multiply this by π and we’re looking at roughly .39269908125” that I’d need to shrink around the circumference. I cut some test pieces of aluminium (which are the same thickness as the ring) at exactly the same length – one as my control piece, the other the working piece. After 15 minutes kicking away at the shrinker (it’s operated Flintstone’s style), I managed to reduce the overall length of the piece by a massive .040”.
It was slow work and the jaws left a lot of crimping marks that would need plenty of work to smooth out later. The jaws of the shrinker would allow for material with a 9” radius curve, but could squash it a little in the process.
So, considering it took 15 minutes to shrink 40 thou’, I was looking at around two and a half hours to shrink the necessary amount of metal, by which time I’d have legs bigger than Tom Platz. Add to this the time it would take to clean the crimp marks and the time it would take to get the ring perfectly round again and the answer shows the effort certainly outweighing the benefit.
Conclusion: Too hard.
Summary: If it were imperative that the ring remain uncut, then this could be a solution, but it would be far easier to hit this thing with an axe and clean up the wound with a file. I’ll have to give some thought to how I’m going to attach the ring once it’s cut, but solid rivets are winning the race right now.
First off, I measured the gap I had between the blue ring and the inner dome. This was .125” across the diameter. Multiply this by π and we’re looking at roughly .39269908125” that I’d need to shrink around the circumference. I cut some test pieces of aluminium (which are the same thickness as the ring) at exactly the same length – one as my control piece, the other the working piece. After 15 minutes kicking away at the shrinker (it’s operated Flintstone’s style), I managed to reduce the overall length of the piece by a massive .040”.
It was slow work and the jaws left a lot of crimping marks that would need plenty of work to smooth out later. The jaws of the shrinker would allow for material with a 9” radius curve, but could squash it a little in the process.
So, considering it took 15 minutes to shrink 40 thou’, I was looking at around two and a half hours to shrink the necessary amount of metal, by which time I’d have legs bigger than Tom Platz. Add to this the time it would take to clean the crimp marks and the time it would take to get the ring perfectly round again and the answer shows the effort certainly outweighing the benefit.
Conclusion: Too hard.
Summary: If it were imperative that the ring remain uncut, then this could be a solution, but it would be far easier to hit this thing with an axe and clean up the wound with a file. I’ll have to give some thought to how I’m going to attach the ring once it’s cut, but solid rivets are winning the race right now.
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