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Archive for September 12th, 2012

Wouxun KG-UV3D: Improved Knob Index

Posted by Ed in Amateur Radio, Machine Shop, Recumbent Bicycling on 2012-09-12

After Raj thoroughly shamed me for slobbering white glop on the KG-UV3D’s volume / power knob, I hereby repent…

Clamp a cutoff chunk of 3/16 =0.1875 inch diameter brass tubing in the lathe and file down one side to put the flat 0.150 inch from the far side, so that the knob is a tight slip fit. If you happen to have some solid rod, that would work just as well. In this case, the file pushed the paper-thin brass remnant into the tubing and I didn’t bother to clean it out:

KG-UV3D knob with fixture

KG-UV3D knob with fixture

Clean the white glop off the knob, jam the knob on the fixture, clamp the fixture in the Sherline’s vise, use laser targeting to center the spindle on the notch adjacent to the minuscule pip on the knob:

Laser aligning to knob feature

Laser aligning to knob feature

Drill a 2 mm recess that en passant obliterates the pip:

Drilling index recess

Drilling index recess

Fill it with some light gray paint that just happens to be on the shelf:

Knob with filled index mark

Knob with filled index mark

And, by gosh, it really does dress up the radio! [grin]

Wouxun KG-UV3D with improved knob

Wouxun KG-UV3D with improved knob

While I had the Sherline set up, I did the knob for the other radio, too.

Thanks, Raj… I needed that!

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