Scott, There is about .010" clearance. It's not enough to slip heat shrink tubing into.
> I can't help but wonder if it was originally soldered at the factory or not. It most definitely was NOT. There is absolutely no evidence of solder on the rod or plate. The manufacturer seems to have felt that neither solder nor insulation was necessary. Interestingly, a pass cavity from the same manufacturer and approximate time period is insulated (in that case the entire top plate of the plunger is insulating material, not metal). > You can look at it this way: If you take another one apart and > find it to not be soldered, it's just a problem waiting to happen. Then they > ALL need 'fixed' That is the nagging feeling I've been having since I pulled this one apart and saw how it was built... these may have been a time bomb ticking for years... > If you can't slide a piece of heatshrink between the rod and the plunger, > Unsolder the other end, slide it out and enlarge the hole a bit. I'm leaning toward that. Then I could cleanly enlarge the hole and slip a bushing in there like you suggested earlier. It will mess up the silver plating at the bottom somewhat, but I'm not sure I could enlarge the hole by the small drill/file method with the tuning rod stuck right in the way. I'm assuming silver plating at the very bottom is not too critical anyway. Did you use silver solder, or regular solder? Paul N1BUG
