From day one Luis and I planned for the yoke to be removable on the Argonaut as it is much easier to store and travel with.
As I have mentioned before my OCD kicks into high gear sometimes and I can't rest until I have a solution that my loco brain considers satisfactory.
When you remove the yoke you leave the threads on the body exposed and the O-ring surface more unprotected than it would be with the yoke installed. This part was not a problem as I was able to source nice silicone caps to slide over the threaded area of the 1st stage...
Problem One....the caps are a lot longer than I needed and unless I would purchase 5000 of them the company would not make a custom size.....
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Problem Two....When you trim the caps to length with scissors, no matter how sharp the scissors or how careful you are there is always a slight curve to the caps where they are trimmed. This just won't do.....
I sent Herman an E-mail asking him to make me a mandrel out of nylon with a groove cut in it so I could put the cap on the mandrel shaft and run a razor knife around in the groove and it would make the cut even on the bottom...Problem solved....
That is unless you are Herman.....
What you see below is in its own small way pure genius! Herman made me a tiny lathe to trim all the caps....It's complete with crank and a replaceable razor blade.
Herman trimmer.jpg
I never thank him enough for putting up with Luis and I on this project and for helping us find solutions to problems big and small and even the ones that are not really a problem but keep me up at night worrying about them
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Doing it right should include some common sense, not just blindly following specs and instructions. .Gary D, AWAP on SB