RE: Aluminum Tailboom Forms

From: Norm Furutani <tilka89_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2012 10:18:55 -0700 (PDT)

I also have a form like John's. I believe it was used as an antenna for a tank. There used to be a button welded on the small end so you couldn't stab yourself.

I also turned a few outdoor tailboom forms using the following method - might work for indoor size. It was tedious but the end result was pretty good.

Calculate the angle of the taper and set it in your cross feed.
Chuck the boom stock with maybe a half inch or less sticking out.
Cut the small end of the boom, maybe a 1/4" of the length.
Gradually extend the stock out of the chuck (do not rotate in the chuck). You might need a steady rest as it gets longer, but nothing fancy, just something to keep it from whipping.
The hard part is the transition of the previous cut to the next cut so there is no step.

I thread the big end of my forms, screw in an eye and hang them so they don't distort.

NormF





- Norm

--- On Tue, 7/3/12, John Berryman <wordguy1950_at_yahoo.com> wrote:
---snip---
Many years ago, I bought a tapered STEEL tail-boom form, bright yellow in color with a threaded end and a hex fitting – clearly a ??? for some piece of machinery.  Mine is about 15” long, ~5/16” at the fat end, ~.070 at the thin end, and straight as a string.  Happy to post pics if there’s a scrounger out there who thinks he might recognize what the original purpose of the ??? was.  It APPEARS to be a piece that, due to fragility, was designed to be replaced fairly frequently – perhaps cheaply?  





  
Received on Tue Jul 03 2012 - 10:18:56 CEST