My experiences are different. For small knobs you need to use high quality wrenches. Those .050 do work if you have a good one. It's amazing how much twist you can put in a high quality Allen wrench while trying to deal with a stubborn screw. The next thing is to make sure that you have them inserted all the way into the set screw. That sometimes takes a bit of wiggling and pushing. Unfortunately, there is the possibility of a damaged screw if it wasn't done right before.
As an old-timer I dealt with many a slotted set screw. Nothing but headaches. Good small bladed screwdrivers are much harder to find than good small Allen wrenches. My favorite is the Bristol (splined) design. http://www.bristolwrench.com/ Collins used them a lot. Every now and then I think about replacing all my radio setscrews with Bristol style but have not yet found a reasonable source for them. David K0LUM At 1:25 PM -0500 5/11/10, Jack Brabham wrote: >Tim, > >I had a similar experience assembling #4169 a few weeks ago. Unfortunately >my stack of assorted allen wrenches didn't include any that small. > >My work around was to grind off the "stripped" portion of the cheesy allen >wrench each time it stripped. > >It only took about two hours and several wrench grindings to mount the two >split knobs, which was really the only PITA encountered during the assembly. >The allen wrench was much smaller when I finished. > >I suspect that a plain old slotted head screw would be more practical in >this application due to being able to apply torque over the screw's full >diameter. > >73 Jack KZ5A -- Education should be an accumulation of understanding, not just an accumulation of facts. Dr. David M. Pozar ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
