Milling down Elevator Bearings and Bushings

Today we continued work on the flight controls. I spent a few hours this morning fitting washers and bolts so that my controls are buttery smooth. The progress is almost invisibly slow, tomorrow we will do a video update to get everyone on board.

We also, by a stroke of fate, found a machinist in town who very professionally fit my elevator bearings and bushings. The factory recommends that you sand the bearings down in a drill press:

Many builders spend countless hours sanding. I got it done in 40 minutes.

According to the Machinist:

“The inner steel sleeve diameter was:

OD —-8mm (minus) { ~0.314”}

ID ——4.5mm { ~0.177 inch}

( Bolt is 3/16” or 0.187” )

The Brass Bushing:

OD —— 7/16“

ID ——- 5/16” minus { ~0.311” }

In order to make things work, I increased the bore in the steel sleeve to accept the 3/16 Hex Headed bolt. Then Bored out each Brass Bushing to the correct assembled fit for the 8mm sleeve. In my opinion, inch & metric parts for this particular assembly got mixed up. “

The finished product.

The finished product turned out to be flawless. It should have come from the factory this way. I imagine that this won’t be the last time I see this issue. I will do some before and after photos to show the improvements.