On Oct 21, 9:44 pm, Fred McKenzie wrote:
In article ,

**THE-RFI-EMI-GUY** wrote:
Heat the ball mount with a torch to cause it to expand and melt some
candle wax into the threads as a lubricant (watch for fire). I don't
think you need red hot, just get the mount to expand enough to break the
bond and apply force to turn the QD threads.

Joe & All-

Thanks for the information and suggestions. I understand stainless is a
poor conductor of heat. I might try a combination of freezing the parts
and then using a torch on the outer piece to increase the temperature
differential.

The female threads may have been tapped prior to crimping that piece to
the top shell of the ball, and the crimping process could have distorted
the threads near the crimp. If I had known about the likelihood of
"galling", I might have tried re-tapping the threads prior to installing
the QD.

Fred
K4DII

Hi, Fred.
Retapping won't help, unless you have an oversized tap. What will help
is using an adjustable die on the male part and squeezing the die down
quite a bit before using it. This will give you a less than 50% thread
engagement, but will still be enough for your antenna. Antisieze
compound is the real answer. Also, if you ever need to drill and tap
stainless, use the next larger size drill bit for the tap you are
going to use. Otherwise you will surely break the tap. I have scars to
testify to learning that!

Good luck,
Paul KD7HB