After coming back from lunch and  seeing what greeted me on the starboard bundle,  I made the firm decision to remain a cabbage for the rest of the day.  Funny, this morning I felt like a King.

This lonely little strand, dangling from the group like an insipid twit,  spells doom for the longevity of these springs.  Xnay the 1/4″,  three strand nylon rope.  Bummer.

As if that wasn’t bad enough,  it looks as if what had been some minor bending in the kamarion (arched strut to all us tourists),  is progressing into something that needs treatment.

The rods clamped to the field frames, in the above photo, indicate the amount of bend that has occurred since stepping up to 5,000 lbs of draw weight.  No worries.  Easy to fix.  Now if this had been wood…….

A new kamarion made from spring grade 4140, is what is needed.  Also the curved stanchion on the starboard field frame is suffering from a case of fatigue   At least it’s posture isn’t very good these days.  Heating the curved part of the stanchion to a salmon red should make straightening it back up pretty easy.  In the photo below we see how the straight stanchion has also taken a bit of a bow.  Also easy to fix.

It appears that the insufficiently strong kamarion,  allowed the twisting moment  from the washers to spring the mild steel field frame into a permanent crank.  I loathe bad posture in my field frames.  It should be possible to upgrade the curved stanchion  by milling away half the outside part of the curve and replacing it with some hard welding rod.  Mistress TIG should assist in that one.

Vanity, vanity, for proclaiming this vessel seaworthy.  “Unassailably robust”, we boasted.  The Gods did not agree.

The bright side to all of this is that some new insights into the artifacts Firefly is based on, may have been gained.  We know, at least with the  limbs and string we are currently using, that it takes around 5000 lbs of draw weight to obtain the kind of performance visible in those videos from yesterday.  It would seem to me that punching holes in 1/4″ plate would be the useful minimum a machine of this size would need to gain any respect on the ancient battlefield.  Anything less would hardly be worth the bother of packing around and maintaining so much kit.  A value judgment, I know, but one has to have standards.

Because it looks like some kind of  spring steel upgrade for the kamarion is mandatory,  then it follows that if the original Kamarion is also made of spring steel,  we might be able to make some useful assumptions about the actual power of the original machine.  ……. This is the point where some heroic scholar needs to jump in and figure out what the metallurgical specs are on the original kamarion.  This may not even be possible.  I hear that it is a pretty rusty fellow.  I bet that redhead guy on CSI could figure it out……..  In any event, if the original kamarion is spring steel, odds are that the Romans were pumping out some serious foot pounds with their machine.

The original kamarion.   (Photo by D. Baatz)

As for that broken strand…… well we were going to try nylon thread anyway.  It was just a matter of time.

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