[Peter Matteson]

Originally Posted by RMS11

Peter, could you elaborate on how this press fit worked? It sounds like a great idea and a way to avoid welding with aluminum. The tube you mentioned, did you just buy an aluminum tube from mcmaster? How were the tolerances? How did you keep the inside part from slipping?

We bought 4" outer diameter 1/8" wall tubing from McMaster, then when it arrived we measured the actual OD. We then made our machine program that put the relief cut in the plates .002" over that OD, and the tube essentially presses into the plates giving good concentric alignment of all pieces. We actually weld the plates to the tube in our case, but the alignment is the important part.