In the course of my attempts to get a good tightening on one of my 10 month old RM2 posts that had been wanting to loosen up on me lately (and resulting in a hot leg), I got a little over zealous with my pliers and crushed the post. Dayumm!!! This is my only REO! When it happened, I was left just staring at my mess with a sunken heart. I immediately got on line and put in an order for another RM2 - but what to do in the mean time?! No choice but to go back to the old Igo-L on a telescope mod and drip. I figured I could hack it long enough for the new RM2 to arrive. After a day of that mess, I was already sick of dripping again - bumming big time.
Last night the light came on and I realized I had an old top-feed Igo-S in the box collecting dust that would fit on my regular profile Grand. I took that bad boy and mounted it in the bench vise and took to the center post with a 1/16 bit and my very old electric drill. Figuring I would destroy the threads in the post, I went for it anyway and got it drilled through - bam! Took the screw and it actually threaded in to my surprise. I had to trim the screw off a bit with my dremel to allow juice to get through the hole in the post. Got it all back together and By Jingo I was squonking again! Mounted an 8-wrap 28g micro and I returned to REO bliss. This little atty aint bad at all and will certainly suffice until my new RM2 arrives. My 18 year old son commented to me while doing the work about how resourceful I am. That's right - I'm bad!
I'm pretty proud of myself for being able to successfully modify a top feed atty to a bottom feed in desperation and it actually work great! I figured I'd share this excellent story with my brother and sister REOnauts. BTW - that cool feller Rob is hooking me up with a new post for my old RM2 so I'll have a backup. Could we have a better mod master? I think not!
Yea, I know, the morale to the story is that we all need at least a second REO as a backup. Lesson learned...
Last night the light came on and I realized I had an old top-feed Igo-S in the box collecting dust that would fit on my regular profile Grand. I took that bad boy and mounted it in the bench vise and took to the center post with a 1/16 bit and my very old electric drill. Figuring I would destroy the threads in the post, I went for it anyway and got it drilled through - bam! Took the screw and it actually threaded in to my surprise. I had to trim the screw off a bit with my dremel to allow juice to get through the hole in the post. Got it all back together and By Jingo I was squonking again! Mounted an 8-wrap 28g micro and I returned to REO bliss. This little atty aint bad at all and will certainly suffice until my new RM2 arrives. My 18 year old son commented to me while doing the work about how resourceful I am. That's right - I'm bad!
I'm pretty proud of myself for being able to successfully modify a top feed atty to a bottom feed in desperation and it actually work great! I figured I'd share this excellent story with my brother and sister REOnauts. BTW - that cool feller Rob is hooking me up with a new post for my old RM2 so I'll have a backup. Could we have a better mod master? I think not!
Yea, I know, the morale to the story is that we all need at least a second REO as a backup. Lesson learned...
