Fixing my handle, maybe this'll give you a good Yuk...

...Either with me, or at me. Makes no difference. 

Anyway, last time I flew the Shoestring, you all witnessed it, my loops were jumpy and I couldn't make a round one to save my life. I haven't ever had that kind of trouble. Maybe too tight, or not on track, or not all the same size, but damn, I just couldn't do it. Funny thing was, my square maneuvers were consistently pretty good, so WTH!

I don't recall now if I already wrote about it, but when I got home and looked at my Sullivan Insta Just, the cable was all bent up, pointing in different directions, and if you pulled on either one, it would straighten a bend on either side of the adjusting nut and get a half inch longer. Well, hell, that would do it. And the squares pull so quick and hard, the lines tighten almost instantly, so it doesn't show as bad. Well I've been fretting over Google searches and reading about handles and looking at pictures. But it'll be a few weeks before I can get a new one, and I need a good working one NOW!

It just so happened that I bumbled upon two perfect sized copper crimp tubes in some junk I had snagged at a club meeting when a member was cleaning his cabinets out. So even though I went out to the shop to work on the Yak, this handle seemed more urgent. So I set out to straighten and shorten the cables. Even straight cables can affect the plane in light line situations, because they're so stiff and springy. and the SS's elevator is very free moving. I intended to do it per AMA minimum requirements... in other words, barely good enough. This requires a set of round nosed pliers. I know I've used dull cutters or needlenose in the past, but recall I recently had a leadout pop, so I'm upping my standards. But good enough is good enough for one week until I can get a hardpoint handle.

Well I don't have any damn round nose pliers. And I want to fly! Soon! So the gears started turning and I came up with a classic Rockn'Rusty solution. First off, I wanted to tame my throws a bit, so I need to set the lines at the same width as the bellcrank. I'd had some acceleration of my input at 4" handle width hooked to a 3" bellcrank, so I bored a set of 3" holes and soldered a couple of short pieces of brass tube in the holes. Then it was time to fix the cable. I took it off the handle and tried to straighten it by heating it, not incandescent but good and hot and pulling it tight. It might have helped a little, but not much. Then I put it back through the new holes and tightened the nut so one end was only 2" long. The ends had been 6" before, way too long. Then I cut the other end off and prepared to crimp it at 2". That should be plenty for minor trimming for the elevator check.

I put the crimp tube on and looped the wire through. It was really tight but I made the required three passes with the little loop protruding from the tail end. Now it was time for the round nose pliers.
Take a look:
 

I superglued two pieces of 1/16" music wire to opposing grooves in my pliers, and voila, round nosed pliers. And the crimp looked good too. The cable was dirty, and I didn't trust it even after acetone cleaning, I put the plier handles in the vice and gave the center crimp a good snug. My grip ain't what it used to be. I hooked it to my fishing scale and sustained a 35# pull for about 30 seconds. Then I tested each wire by itself, and they passed a 30# pull too.

I am confident my stunts will be much more shapely next time, hopefully Tuesday. They were so distorted last time, I got disgusted and locked the Youtube video after a day. Anyway, since I didn't go fly today, I figured I'd post something. Y'all know how I like to write. So anyway, that's what I did today. That and cranked the SS with it's new APC 10x3 to make sure I can adjust the needle in its new upside down configuration. That allowed me to cut more than 3" off the line from the rank to the engine. It's been a lot easier to start since I did that too.

Rusty