[Shop-talk] Cotter Usage

[Bob Spidell]

Same goes for safety wiring; I learned the hard way you have to tuck the 
ends back where they can't reach out and rip your hands.

On 11/17/2020 9:59 AM, John Innis wrote:
> About 1000 years ago when I was in A&P school I was taught to do style 
> #2.  THe main reason is that someone will eventually need to reach 
> their hand into a tight spot past the cotter pin you have installed.  
> If you used style #2, you are much less likely to leave sharp edges 
> that will shred the hands of the next guy who has to work on this 
> thing.  I actually had an instructor who would look for stuff like 
> this and if she found that you left a sharp edge somewhere she would 
> deliberately run you hand across it in a way as to cause just enough 
> damage to get the point across.  Not a lesson I needed to have repeated.
>
> On Tue, Nov 17, 2020 at 11:40 AM Bob Spidell <bspidell at comcast.net 
> <mailto:bspidell at comcast.net>> wrote:
>
>     Got some 'quiet time' before I have to go look after my mom, and I
>     thought I'd pose an arcane question to the List:
>
>     What do y'all consider the proper way to use a cotter key/pin? I've
>     watched the pros on TV--Edd China, Ant Anstead, Goblin Garage,
>     Fantomworks, etc. and the 'Chop it/Channel It/Drop a Crate Engine In
>     It/Bag It/Put Huge Dubs and a Gaudy Paint Job On It and Call It a
>     Day'
>     hotrod builders, and they all do it a bit different. Usually, it's
>     'Type
>     1'--see terrible hand-drawn 'art' attached (using a stub axle for
>     example)--but I gave it a lot of thought and wondered 'Is that the
>     best
>     way?' Thinking it through, yes, any way you put a cotter in and
>     secure
>     it will do the job; i.e. keep the nut from coming completely undone.
>     However, when safety-wiring--a skill I sorta learned maintaining
>     my own
>     aircraft--you're supposed to always wire so as to pull in the
>     tightening
>     direction, to resist any turning at all of the nut/bolt. So, when
>     applicable--e.g. on castellated nuts--I torque until the cotter will
>     just fit in the hole (drawing# 2), situated 'sideways'--where you
>     can't
>     see the eye of the cotter from the side--snug against the side of the
>     nut's slot so as to resist the nut turning at all. Then, I bend the
>     upper half of the cotter back over the nut/spindle, and snip the
>     lower
>     half at the edge of the nut, figuring anything longer than that isn't
>     doing anything (plus it just looks neater IMO, and may be easier to
>     remove if necessary).
>
>     FWIW, my late father, who was an auto shop teacher and had a few
>     psychology classes under his belt said I was 'stuck at the anal
>     retentive stage' of child development; I (think) he was kidding.
>
>     Bob
>

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