Actually, the Cobra tool is made of black Delrin plastic with an approx 13
mm steel pin insert into the lesser diameter eccentric extending into the
larger body of the tool. The steel pin acts as a reinforcement.

I purchased one of Cobra's tools with my glider, then made my own copying
Cobra's basic design with minor improvements. (my time is worth very little,
or I enjoy playing with machine tools . I kept mine and sold the "store
bought" one to another 26e owner.

bumper


"Andy Blackburn" wrote in message
...
The Cobra tool works like a charm.

It's just a wingpin-diameter cylinder with a ~1/3 wingpin-diameter
cylinder sticking off the end of it, offset to the
outer edge of the larger cylinder. You simply insert
it through the fork bushing with the offset to the
inside so it can engage the tounge bushing and twist
180 degrees. It uses a wide contact area and is made
from nylon, so the likelihood of scoring the bushings
in minimal. I would think it would be fairly easy
to make one for someone with access to a decent machine
shop, but Cobra charged me 85 Euros, so it depends
what your time's worth.

In the past I've seen people using steel pry-bar tools,
which scare the heck out of me.

9B

At 18:42 25 October 2004, Eric Greenwell wrote:
Chip Bearden wrote:

I also recall that a few other early fiberglass gliders
had similar
wrenches. Possibly even the later Diamants (16.5 and
18m versions)
which used a wing pin design a little more similar
to today's types.

The PIK 20 (at least the E model) had one. Same situation,
I think: with
pins on the ends of the spar butts, it takes some levering
to get every
thing to slide together that last 2-3 mm so the pin
can be slid in.

The Cobra eccentric wing pin tool sounds like an interesting
alternative to the over-center wrench.

The pilots that have them say it is slick, making it
easy for one person
to assemble without a lot of running back and forth.
For Schleicher and
gliders with a similar wing pin system, it's actually
better than a
lever, because it tends to align the holes instead
of just drawing the
wings together.

My cheaper, home-made, but similar tool works almost
as well, but the
Cobra tool is a better design out of better materials.
I'd buy one if I
didn't already have mine, since I self-rig 95% of the
time.


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Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA