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At the recent
Medford IMAC contest, I noticed the left front tire on Dave Davis’ van
was getting low on air. I made a mental note to remind Dave to swing
by the gas station during the return trip to the hotel Saturday
night. After the day’s events, we noticed the tire had lost a
considerable amount of air and was nearly inoperative.
Being surrounded
by a bunch of creative modelers, we decided to use a friend’s portable
compressor (belonging to Mike McGuyer of the Molalla club) to add enough
air to allow for the short trip to the local gas station. While the
12V compressor was humming away, Fred Hostetler did a close inspection of
the tire and found a #8 sheet metal screw penetrating the tire in one of
the tread valleys.
Grant Sharp of
Molalla was standing nearby and asked “Do you have any CA?” We
all knew exactly what was on Grant’s mind. I asked Grant if he had
tried something like this before and he laughingly said “NO, but why not
try it?”
Somebody in the
group (I think it was Mike) had some of the popular black rubberized CA to
assist Dave with the experiment. Dave backed the screw out of the
tire about 3-4 turns and soaked the threads with black CA. Dave then
re-tightened the screw in the tire until it snuggly bottomed out.
Dave commented that he had tightened the screw with extreme force and
found that it was locked in tight. Evidently the black CA had dried
quickly from the compression. The tire appeared to be holding air and 12v
compressor had provided enough air to allow safe driving.
After driving
back to the hotel, we stopped to top off the air pressure and figured we
would let it sit overnight to see if changing to the spare was
necessary. On Sunday morning, the tire had not lost a single pound
of pressure. After a quick breakfast, we headed off to the Rogue
Eagles flying site to finish the IMAC contest. At the end of the day, the
tire still looked good and we opted to road test it instead of hassling
with the spare.
Fred Hostetler
was traveling with us in his Ford Expedition as a “wing man” to ensure
safety and compliance to speed laws. While checking the tire at
every rest area and gas stop, we saw no decrease in air pressure. We
continued the entire 300 miles from the Rogue Eagle’s flying site near
Medford to Forest Grove, OR with no problem. Black CA saves the day!
Although not
recommended in every instance, this is a good trick to remember if your
tire finds sharp screw on the way to the flying field. Based upon a
statistical data sample of ONE case study, we can safely say that black CA
is rated for metal and rubber up to 35 lbs of air pressure at temperatures
up to 95 degrees for distances of up to 300 miles. I have not heard
from Dave since we returned from Medford, so it is possible that he could
still be driving his van with a sheet metal screw secured into his tire
with black CA.
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