(page 11-08 finished) Ein Klöster Föken......           

...Well, almost.  Crimping the Molex connectors turned out to be a royal pain.  There are some excellent videos on EweTube (they really are a bunch of sheep regarding political correctness and anything other than left-wing politics) made me realize that I needed a special tool rather than the garden-variety crimpers I already possessed.  I got the one from SteinAir which worked quite well.  The near-microscopic pins were difficult to see, even with some 3x magnifiers I bought at Wall Mart.  The insulator requires a "bear hug" crimp, while the conductor needs a plunge-type crimp, both possible with the SteinAir crimper.  Once the pins are crimped, they are inserted into a connector (shown at the ends of the five wires in the picture).  As each pin is inserted, tiny ears pop out, locking the pin in.  A special tool is required to remove a pin once inserted.  How do I know this?  The build manual clearly shows where each pin goes, but I found it difficult to insert each pin.  Only one orientation will work, and I had to make multiple attempts with each pin using some ground-down needle-nose pliers.  Somehow, one pin went into the wrong hole (joke here redacted owing to the family nature of this blog).  Following my verbal outburst, the air in the workshop had a blue tinge.  I ordered the tool from the Mother Ship, removed the errant pin, and now the servo tray is finished.

I received the new actuator tube and aluminum plug (see description of their death in the previous post), drilled the #40 holes with a drill press this time, and successfully squeezed the rivets.  It was still quite difficult to squeeze those long, skinny rivets without bending them, but it's done.

My decision to paint as I go is holding me up.  I need to get that figured out -- either order all the equipment and do it myself or pay someone to do it.