[Elecraft] K2: Tilt Bail Installation Question

[Tom Hammond]

Hi Folks:

At 11:44 AM 1/22/05, Bruce McLaughlin wrote:
>This had to be one of the most frustrating steps involved in building my
>K2/100!  Even resort to uttering mighty oaths did not appreciably help,
>although, that did scare the cat out from under the work bench.
>
>I finally reported to using a Quickgrip hand vise BUT . . . be VERY
>CAREFUL if you do that.  It is very easy to use too much force and bend
>the bail to the point where it is too loose and then won't stay up.  If
>you use this method, take it slowly, carefully and with only minimum
>increments of pressure until the ends of the bail will slip into the
>feet.  I'm not suggesting this is the best way of doing it but after
>trying various other suggestions, it seemed to work best for me.

I guess I should relate the method I used (long ago) to get my tilt bail 
installed... it still works today, and might make things a bit easy for 
others...

The big problem I think we all seem to have is that the screws are too darn 
short to allow easy installation... so... USE LONGER ONES... at least until 
you get things tightened down the first time. Once you have the bail in 
place and the screws tightened down, start replacing them, one-by-one, with 
screws of the proper length!!! Even if you have to find a few 'spare' 3/4" 
4-40 screws, it's worth the small added effort and NOT having to let loose 
with all the invectives I first found when I was doing my K2... It wasn't 
until I built my K1 that I realized how easy things became once I used the 
longer screws at the start.

73,

Tom   N0SS