Aligning Ship Rudders

correspondence between Fred Lounsberry (SureTech Inc.) and John Piotrowski (Turvac Inc.)

This correspondence may seem like a radical departure from typical rotating machinery alignment measurement methods but alignment problems occur in virtually every industry and the marine industry is no exception. We do not profess to be experts in the marine industry, so as you read this and examine the illustrations, please forward any suggestions or ideas on how to accomplish the alignment goals or how to effect repairs in a more efficient and timely manner. Since there are several references to product brand names, we would like to state that this does not indicate that we are endorsing any of the products mentioned below. In fact, if you have something that's going to work better, please let us know! Thanks and enjoy!


Gentlemen:

Recently I purchased your book Shaft Alignment Handbook. It is fascinating to find out how much I don't know about a subject that I thought I knew!

From time-to-time we are called on to repair erosion/corrosion damage in large bores such as pintle pins on large ships. These bores are typically 20 inch ID at the top (large end) with a taper of 1 inch in 12 inches and have a length of about 24 inches (thus a delta of about 2 inches from the initial ID). The bores are usually of cast iron welded to rudders that can weigh over 35 tons. The pintle pins are usually a metal-to-metal tapered fit (some with keys, others without) and 85% fit is usually required. Through the use of Belzona Polymeric Repair Products we can use the pintle pin as a male mold and mold a new surface inside the bore at significantly less cost that a new rudder. This negates the inherent problems of welding up cast iron and boring it back to specs.

The problem we encounter is how to accurately determine the centerline of the pintle pin bore vis-à-vis the centerline of the rudder stock bore which is usually above it with a separation of 3 ft. - 5 ft. This can get tricky as the sun warms the rudder and the rudder may be slightly warped due to groundings of the ship, etc.

Do you know of a method that we could use in the field, other than the traditional tight-line (piano wire) method to determine the centerline of the bores? We usually find the centerline by trial and error, pinpunch the faces (top and bottom) of the bore at 4 points equidistant from the center and then insert the pintle pin and take measurements from the OD of the inserted pin to the punch marks (assuming that the OD is fairly round). The jacking bolts are used to make minor corrections. There has got to be a quicker and better way. Any suggestions?

I am giving a in-house seminar to Belzona consultants in December '98 at our headquarters in Miami on my experience in the field. It would be nice to be able to compare my field experience (and horror stories) to some more current approaches.

Thank you in advance. Please feel free to contact me via e-mail or telephone at 1-888-316-8946. My company is SureTech, Inc. and we are Technical Consultants to Belzona.

Fred Lounsberry

SureTech Inc.

1279 Log Canoe Court

Annapolis MD 21403


Fred :

Thank your for your e-mail and the request to arrive at a better way to determine the relative position of the centerlines of rotation of two pintle pins bores. I haven't done a tremendous amount of work with the marine industry so I am not familiar with some of the terminology you used in your correspondence so please forgive my ignorance. There are several questions I need to ask you about your pintle pin arrangement before I can answer your question. I would assume that this work is done with the ship out of the water. I have attached a drawing based on your input so far as shown below.

Figure 1. First sketch of the pintle pin and rudder arrangement (not quite right!).

Are the pintle pins the bearings that support the rudder shaft? Are they vertically oriented as shown in my diagram? If the pintle pins are tapered from the top to the bottom, what keeps the rudder shaft from falling out? Does the water act as the lubricant when the shaft that holds the rudder rotates or are there seals at both ends of the pins enabling grease or oil as the lubricant? How is the rudder rotated? Are their any bolt holes in the circumference at the top or bottom of each pintle pin? You mentioned jacking screws. Where are they at and what is their purpose? If you are trying to achieve 85% contact between the rudder shaft and the pintle pins, then you also have to be somewhat concerned with the accuracy of the taper. How do you determine the amount of contact you have ... with Prussian Blue perhaps? How do you know that the rudder shaft is straight and not bent? How many different ships do you work on (i.e. how often do you do this) and how much does the bore, the taper, and the distance between pins vary? On a different note, how fast do you want to do this? How much money are you willing to spend on a different method and the tools to do it with?

Sorry for all of the questions, but I can't give you a good answer until I get more familiar with your arrangement. You could fax me a drawing or sketch that is more correct try to verbally explain this in another e-mail or compose a drawing on your computer and insert it into your next e-mail to help me. Hope to hear from you soon.

John Piotrowski

11-10-1998


SureTech Inc. Annapolis MD

11-10-1998

Dear John :

Thank you for your e-mail response to my questions. I have included a rough (very rough!) sketch of a typical rudder with the rudder stock and pintle pin arrangement. By way of definitions the rudder stock penetrates the hull of the ship, attaches to mechanical devices internal to the ship and imparts a rotation to the rudder. This is what moves the rudder. It is usually (not always) keyed to the rudder and held in place with a very large nut. Access to the nut is via a removable panel on the rudder itself.

Figure 2. Typical rudder and drive system found on large ships (made from Fred's sketch).

The pintle pin is the hinge pin for the rudder. It caries about 95% of the horizontal force of the rudder when the rudder is turned. The pintle pin is secured in a pintle pin bore in the rudder and held in place with a nut. The pin is forced on with significant force to form an interference fit. The rudder has a cast iron pintle pin boss as part of its structure and the rest of the 'skin' of the rudder is welded on using plate steel on internal frames. The rudder is hollow and is usually filled to about 1 psi with air. It actually floats. The rudder is held vertically by the pintle pin riding in a bearing surface on the rudder horn and by the rudder stock which is secured by multiple bearing strakes internal to the hull and by the mechanical arrangement inside the hull which moves the rudder stock.

The rudder stock bore and the pintle pin bore are located in the rudder. They are about 20 inches ID at the tip and about 18 inches at the bottom with a taper of 1 inch in 12 inches. The rudder stock bore has at least one keyway which mates up with a key on the rudder stock. Sometimes (especially older German vessels) the keys are in the bore and the keyway is on the rudder stock. The keys are very large and are always bolted securely in place. The rudder is usually removed from the ship (usually weighs about 35 tons) for this sort of work.

The access panels in the rudder are cut out after the ship is in dry dock. The rudder is held in place with chainfalls and the rudder stock is then removed along with the mechanical connections inside the ship. The rudder stock is then lifted out through holes in the ships decks. The rudder is then lowered and tilted until the pintle pin is free of its bearing surface in the rudder horn. My drawing is not to scale and does not allow that movement! The rudder is then removed and set up vertically in a work bay. The pintle pin nut access panel is removed and the pintle pin nut is removed. The pintle pin is then removed. Usually the pintle pin is very loose in the pintle pin bore and that is the reason the rudder is being removed. Clearances of up to 1/4 inch have been found where metal-to-metal interference fit should exist. That's where SureTech comes in.

We use Belzona Polymeric products to rebuild the pintle pin taper (on a lathe) and then use the rebuilt pin taper as a male mold to mold a new bore in the rudder. You can start to see that alignment of this very large pin (sometimes as much as 405 tons) can be tricky. It is imperative that the centerlines of the pintle pin bore (in the rudder) and the rudder stock bore (in the rudder) be the same. This is very difficult due to the mass of the rudder, the age of the ship (groundings, collisions, etc.) and the lack of a smooth machined surface to take readings from. It is not uncommon for the inside of the bores to have erosion / corrosion pits of 1/4 inch.

A tight wire (piano wire) is usually strung via jigs from the top of the rudder stock to the bottom of the pintle pin bore on the rudder. Then by trial and error the centerline of the two bores is found. Rarely are the two bores perfectly in line. When the tight wire is centered as best it can, punch marks are made on the top and bottom of each bore equidistant from the wire at the cardinal points. The wire is then removed and jacking bolts are welded on to the top and bottom of the bores to move the pin after it is installed. Calipers are then used to measure from the punch marks to the outside of the pintle pin and the jacking bolts adjusted to center the pin in the bore. Measurements are noted, the pin removed, Belzona is applied, and the pin is re-centered, the product is allowed to cure and then the pin is jacked out. The result is a molded metal-to-metal surface. The nut is applied, torqued down and the rudder is replaced on the ship. If the rudder stock has problems it is solved in a similar fashion.

Now you are an expert in pintle pin alignment and you are wondering why you ever answered my e-mail!

The biggest problem we encounter is in finding the centerline of the two bores on the rudder. This is complicated by the fact that this centerline must, by design, also match up with the centerline of the bearing surface on the rudder horn and the bearing strakes in the hull along with the mechanical devices to turn the rudder stock inside the hull.

Most of your questions have probably been answered by this diatribe. Specific answers are as follows :

1. The rudder is supported (held in place) by the rudder stock nut and the bearing surface of the pintle pin in the rudder horn.

2. They are all vertical.

3. Nuts keep the rudder from falling off.

4. Water is the lubricant for the Bering surface in the rudder horn. It is usually made of DuPont Thordan or bronze.

5. The rudder is rotated by the rudder stock being acted upon by rams inside the ship.

6. Jacking screws are temporarily centering devices used during repairs.

7. Prussian Blue is used for bluing after molding.

8. The rudder stock and pintle pin are usually put in a lathe and checked for trueness.

9. We usually do about 1-2 ships per year and most of them are as discussed earlier.

10. It would be nice to be able to find the centerline within 4-5 hours at a cost of about $1200.00 to $2000.00 per ship.

11. I am very interested in using, learning, or hiring anyone or any method to do this in a consistent and repeatable fashion.

I have purchased a Pinpoint Laser system to assist me in this regard but lasers per se are not the answer if the methodology is flawed. Your comments are appreciated. Thank you very much.

Fred Lounsberry


Fred :

Thank your for your fax of November 10th and the sketch of the rudder arrangement typically found on large ships. Please forgive my delay in answering but I have been working at a chemical plant since your correspondence arrived and this is my first opportunity to take a closer look at the questions you posed and some possible variations to finding and correcting alignment problems with the rudder drive system.

I have made a few sketches to help me visualize the rudder drive system and your current method of alignment measurement, component repair, and realignment process.

Shown below are some drawings indicating the components and the step by step process of disassembling of the rudder steering drive system as you described them (or at least I think so).

Figure 3. Supporting the rudder with chainfalls.

Figure 4. Removing the rudder stock nut.

Figure 5. Moving the rudder and pintle pin assembly away from the ships hull.

Figure 6. Removing the pintle pin and nut from the rudder.

Figure 7. Using a tight wire arrangement to determine the center of the tapered bores.

I see two major alignment measurement to be made.

1. Aligning the centerline of rotation of the rudder stock to the pintle pin bearing in the rudder horn.

2. Aligning the tapered bores of the rudder stock and pintle pin on the rudder.

You indicated that your biggest problem was finding the centerline of the two bores on the rudder. In my opinion, there is no way to do this without using some sort of removable fixturing mechanism no matter what type of measuring device (tight wire, laser, dial indicator, etc.) is used. I also feel that at least four points needed to be measured, i.e. the top and bottom of each taper bore to determine the centerline. I'm not sure about how you are using punch marks at the top and bottom of each bore 'equidistant from the wire at the cardinal points'. Could you explain this more?

There are a couple of ideas that I have but there are still some questions that I need to get answered before I can suggest a good approach.

- How do you check the alignment of the centerline of rotation of the rudder stock to the pintle pin bearing in the rudder horn?

- What is the radial bearing clearance between the outside diameter of the rudder stock and its support bearing? Also what is the radial bearing clearance between the outside diameter of the pintle pin and its support bearing? Since these are sliding type bearings, the rule of thumb I have always been taught is to allow 3/4 to 2 mils per inch of shaft diameter for the bearing clearance. If the rudder stock and pintle pin are 20 inches in diameter, the radial bearing clearance should be between 0.015" and 0.040". Based on these numbers and the width (height) of the bearings, the acceptable accuracy of the alignment process can be determined.

- After removing the rudder/pintle pin arrangement, can the rudder stock be rotated at least 180 degrees? If not 180 degrees, how far can it be rotated with the ship in dry dock?

- Would you be willing to allow me to put all of this information on our Web Site in the Technical Info section and suggest that we get input from other people around the world?

- I am not familiar with the Pinpoint Laser system you mentioned in your correspondence. Could you send me some information on this system? I have contacted some of my friends in the laser alignment industry and they have sent me some info on some products that may help here, but IÕm not sure.

Again, sorry for all of the questions. Hope to hear from you soon.

John Piotrowski

12-12-1998


Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 17:00:40 -0500 (EST)

From: Fred Lounsberry

Dear John:

Thanks for the informative e-mail, including the attachments. You are right-on in your sketches. The rudder stock nut is usually removed and then the rudder stock is pulled out from the top through a hole in the deck of the ship. This shaft is usually about 20-30 feet long and can weigh about 10 tons. The rudder can then be lowered slightly until the pintle pin clears the rudder horn and then rotated out and removed from the ship.

I gave a presentation on alignment in the Marine market at a 3-day in-house Belzona seminar in Miami, FL last weekend. . See Belzona.com for info on Belzona. My company has been a Belzona rep for 5 years and we have done about 5 of the Pintle pin repairs that we have been talking about. I gave your name, your company's name, your book, telephone, e-mail, etc. as a "source of additional information". We had over 130 Belzona reps and distributors from all over the world. You may get questions from Russian, China, Slovenia, Peru, France, Germany, Argentina, (these are the ones that asked me how to contact you) and others from all 50 states.

Answers to your questions:

1. The tight wire must be (as best one can) centered at the top and bottom of each bore. A set distance is then measured and marked off from the wire on the bore face. This is done with a handheld caliper and a set of center punches. Now we have marks on the face of the bores (top and bottom) that are equidistant from the centerline of the bores. This is the "zero" point for another set of measurements taken after the pin in is the bore. The distance from a smooth bearing surface on the pin to each of these center punched points is then measured with a caliper/micrometer. The ;pin is then jacked around until all of these measurements are equal. The pin is then assumed to be centered. This is repeated top and bottom. Remember there may be a clearance of about 1/4" where there once was a met-to-metal fit. I might point out that this entire procedure is for repairs of eroded areas not for new construction.

2. The centerline of rotation of the ruder stock to the pintle pin in the rudder horn is assumed to be collinear if the rudder bores (both of them are collinear) and the pintle pin is centered in one and the rudder stock in the other and the rudder must not be bent (it may be over 35 tons and probably is bent!). There is a very significant amount of "slop" involved here. The amount of rotation is very small, no more that about 20-30 degrees on each side (total of about 60 degrees).

3. The rudder stock clearances are quite large since some of the bearing material is lignum vitae (a rather unique wood) and it is coated (smathered is a better term) with copious amounts of grease. All of this is well above the waterline and not subject to immersion. This is not an area that requires much alignment work.

4. The radial clearances on the bearing surfaces of the pintle pin are less critical than one might think since the bearing surface of the bore is usually (not always) a "plastic" insert such as Thordan (a fascinating product by Dupont). Other surfaces include bronze, brass, and even stainless steel. This is all lubricated by water.

5. The rudder stock is usually removed before the rudder is removed.

6. Please feel free to post this information on your website.

The primary interest we have in all this is obviously the sale of Belzona Polymerics to rebuild the worn areas without having to resort to welding. Welding and machining is difficult on the rudder stock and on the pintle not just because of their size (10 tons and 30 feet require some equipment and a large lathe) but also because of the risk of thermal distortion of the shaft during welding. It is much safer, easier, quicker and cheaper to use Belzona. Belzona also doesn't corrode so the job only has to be done once. The oldest repair we have is on the QE II and it is about 19 years old, and no problems.

Ref. PinPoint lasers, I will send some info to you. You can also look at their website at pinlaser.com. I am a distributor for these lasers and use them almost daily.

Thanks again for all your help. This is a fascinating subject from an engineering point of view but also from the comments I get from Belzona customers, namely, that they really don't give enough attention to alignment.

Best regards, Fred

P.S. My computer died just before my presentation last weekend (Naturally!) and I am doing this off a borrowed monitor. I will be without a computer for most of this week.


Fred :

Thank your for your e-mail of December 14th answering the questions I asked. I'm sorry that I didn't have all of this ready for your presentation since I was not sure when in December the presentation was going to happen. I can appreciate your comment on ... "that they really don't give enough attention to alignment."

Over the past 25 years I have observed that the majority of people involved with rotating machinery have never been told how important proper alignment is nor have they been shown how alignment can be measured with all of the tools available to us today. There are three undeniable facts about machinery alignment :

1. There are four ingredients required to do alignment : training, tools, time, and inspiration. If you remove any one of these, you are doomed to failure.

2. There is not one method or one tool that can perform every type of alignment measurement needed for the wide variety of machinery in existence. There are advantages and disadvantages to each method. An alignment expert is someone who knows how to perform all of the methods and uses the best method for each situation.

3. Caliper, micrometer, dial indicators, laser / detectors, optical encoders, proximity probes can only measure misalignment ... they cannot correct misalignment.

After reviewing all of the material up to this point, I have come to the conclusion that your final objective is to determine a way to temporarily install pintle pin centering devices. Prior to getting into the tapered pintle pin alignment, I am also somewhat concerned about aligning the centerline of rotation of the rudder stock to the pintle pin bearing in the rudder horn. If it is possible for the ship to run aground or hit something under water, it is possible for the rudder horn to get bent causing a misalignment between the rudder stock bearing and the pintle pin bearing. Very quickly, here is one way to check for a misalignment condition between these two bearings.

Assuming the rudder has been removed and the rudder stock is in place, figure 8 shows how the double radial method could be used to measure if the bore of the pintle pin bearing is not collinear with the centerline of rotation of the rudder stock.

Figure 8. Using the double radial method to determine if the centerline of rotation of the rudder stock is in line with the bore of the bearing on the rudder horn.

This method is explained on page 211 in the second edition of the Shaft Alignment Handbook. It is important for people to realize that despite the fact that the illustrations in the Handbook show that the dial indicators are set up to measure on the outside diameter of a shaft, they could also be used to measure the inside of a bore of a cylinder (e.g. a bearing in this case). You mentioned that ... "the amount of rotation is very small, no more that about 20-30 degrees on each side (total of about 60 degrees)." Here is a trick I use in the event that you cannot rotate a shaft through 360 degrees.

1. Mark off the inside or outside of the cylinder (i.e. shaft or bearing bore) into 90 degree arcs. Since the rudder stock is vertically oriented, I usually try to use compass directions (N,S,E,W) to designate the position at each quadrant.

2. Rotate the shaft (rudder stock) all the way in one direction until it stops. Clamp the bracket to the shaft, set the indicator at one of the quadrant marks and zero the indicator.

3. Rotate the shaft as far as it can go in the other direction (in this case 60 degrees) taking care to observe what the indicator is readings as you do the rotation. When the shaft stops its rotation, record the dial indicator measurement and also scribe a mark with a pencil or soap stone exactly where the tip of the indicator stopped on the surface of the shaft or bearing bore.

4. Rotate the shaft back to its starting position, loosen the bracket on the shaft, rotate the entire bracket / dial indicator arrangement so the tip of the indicator is positioned where it stopped at the pencil / soap stone mark, tighten the bracket, dial in the measurement you observed at this point and start rotation again. Keep in mind that you only have 30 degrees to go before you get to your first quadrant mark!

5. Repeat steps 2 through 4 until you get all the way around the shaft (note : see the Validity Rule on page 219 ... i.e. you don't have to rotate all the way around!).

Once the measurements have been taken at the top and bottom of the bearing bore, you could plot/model these measurements as described on pages 304 to 306 in the Shaft Alignment Handbook. Remember, you are taking bore measurements, not OD measurements so be careful how you plot the points. You may also want to refer to the example problem on pages 496 and 497 for modeling vertically oriented shafts.

OK, finding a misalignment problem between these two bearings might be neat using this method but fixing the problem could be a great challenge. Please forgive me, but I had to mention this because if we get the tapered bores of the rudder to be collinear, if the alignment of the rudder stock bearing and the pintle pin bearing are not in line with each other, none of this is going to work right! As far as I am concerned, the pintle pin is nothing more than an extension of the rudder stock shaft.

Now, here is one way to find the center of the tapered bores on the rudder (it's not the only way and hopefully some of the visitors reading this can suggest other methods). Figure 2 shows a side and a top view of the arrangement. Rather than using a tight wire, a piece of tubing is used to support a 'radial arm' holding a measuring device, in this case, a dial indicator. Figure 3 shows a close up of the radial arm assembly. The radial arm has the capacity to slide up and down the center tube enabling us to measure any point along the length of the tube. Due to the taper of the bores, the radial arm must have the capacity to reach out different distances so the radial arm is fabricated from two tubes that can telescope in each other. The center tube is held in place with fixtures at the top of the rudder where the rudder stock indexes into its tapered bore and at the bottom of the lower tapered bore in the rudder where the pintle pin indexes into its tapered bore. The upper and lower fixture has jackscrews that allow us to move the top and bottom of the center tube to establish a precise centerline. The general procedure might be as follows :

1. Position the upper and lower center tube support frames as shown in figure 9. Slide the center tube through the upper support part way and then slide the radial arm onto the center tube. Slide the center tube until it indexes into the lower support bearing. Roughly center the fixtures using a tape measure from the outside diameter of the center tube to points on the inside of the tapered bores (i.e. roughly within +/- .125"). Rigidly attach the upper and lower center tube support frames to the rudder by drilling and tapping holes or by tack welding the fixture in place (you might be able to use strong magnets to hold them but you run the risk of bumping it later on).

Figure 9. Measuring the center of the tapered bores using a center tube held in place with fixtures at the top and bottom of the rudder.

Figure 10. A close-up of the radial arm assembly.

2. Attach a dial indicator to the end of the telescoping tubes of the radial arm assembly. Slide the radial arm so it is in line with the top of the upper tapered bore and lock it in this position. Rotate the radial arm so it is in line with one of the quadrant marks, zero the indicator, and rotate the radial arm through a 180 degree arc observing the dial indicator as you do so. Adjust the jackscrews so the dial indicator reads half of the total stem travel. Re-zero the indicator and rotate 180 degrees back to its original point. If the indicator is not zero, adjust the jacking screws until you sweep zero from side to side. Rotate the radial arm through a 90 degree arc to the other two quadrant marks and repeat the centering procedure described in this step.

3. Slide the radial arm so it is in line with the bottom of the lower tapered bore and lock it in this position. Rotate the radial arm so it is in line with one of the quadrant marks, zero the indicator, and rotate the radial arm through a 180 degree arc observing the dial indicator as you do so. Adjust the jackscrews so the dial indicator reads half of the total stem travel. Re-zero the indicator and rotate 180 degrees back to its original point. If the indicator is not zero, adjust the jacking screws until you sweep zero from side to side. Rotate the radial arm through a 90 degree arc to the other two quadrant marks and repeat the centering procedure described in this step. At this point the center tube should be positioned at the centerline of the bore of the two tapered bores. You could take additional measurements at the bottom of the upper tapered bore and the top of the lower tapered bore to see how much of a variation exists at these two points.

4. Slide the radial arm to a position where the pintle pin locating jackscrews will be placed. Affix four jackscrews at 90 degree arcs on the top and bottom of each tapered bore (i.e. a total of 8 jackscrews).

5. Remove the radial arm, center tube, and fixturing mechanisms.

6. Proceed with the temporary installation of the pintle pin and bore repair as shown in figure 11.

Figure 11. Jackscrews positioning the pintle pin.

I know there are some foggy areas in this arrangement, but at least this hopefully gives you a general idea of how this would be done. I think you could expect accuracy's of centerline measurement in the +/- 0.005" area and possibly better depending on how careful you are in the set up.

I know that you might be interested in using laser / detector systems for something like this but I'm not sure how much different it would look compared to what is shown above. To a certain extent, the laser beam would replace the center tube or the tight wire. You still need something to measure from the beam path to points a specified distance away from the beam. As you are probably well aware Fred, the accuracy of a laser alignment system has very little to do with the laser. The accuracy of a laser system is usually dictated by the accuracy of the photodiode (AKA the detector or target) and how precisely the position of the photodiode can be achieved and maintained. Shown below is a drawing of a fixturing mechanism for holding laser / detectors systems inside a bore or cylinder.

Figure 11. Delta Fixture. Drawing courtesy of FixtureLaser AB, Sweden.

The fixtures are manufactured by FixtureLaser in Sweden. The publication for the fixtures is No. P-0013GB. The North American Distributor for these products is VibrAlign in Richmond, VA 804-379-2250). This fixture (or something similar to it) could hold a semiconductor junction diode laser in the center of a bore at one point and and another fixture could hold the photodiode at other points along a bore. Many of the photodiodes today are capable of determining the center of the beam within 3 microns (i.e. about 12 millionths of an inch). Cool ... do you really need that kind of accuracy? Even if you can locate the center of a bore with the photodiode, how would you measure from the center of the beam/photodiode to the jackscrews temporarily mounted to the rudder to hold the pintle pin in place? I don't know how to answer that, maybe one of the visitors can propose a solution.

Anyway, I hope this is just the beginning of the discussion. Perhaps someone out there can suggest some additional ideas. It's been fun, keep in touch, and let me know what you think. Once I hear from you, I'll compile all of this and add it in to out Technical Info section on our Web Site.

John Piotrowski

12-16-1998