Thanks for having a look BC Dave. Karl works hard to achieve his goals and the shop and tools are part of the fruits of his labor. He is the best type of friend to have. I never mind giving him a hand, being there for him to bounce ideas off of, getting that rare call in the middle of the night when you just need someone to get you out of a hard spot, or just being a friend, because he is always there to do the same for me. Kind of the definition of a best friend, isn't it?
Shadow, the short answer to, "Why make one when you can buy one?" is because I CAN. All of the ones that I have seen in the market are clunky looking and in the $300 price range. Not that I can't afford it, but why should I spend a significant chunk of money on something that does not appeal to me aesthetically? TPCE is a vision of mine. I want to see that vision come to life.
GPW gets it. I am a mechanical person. I do mechanical things for work and hobby. This is a hobby for me. I looked at pop-ups, I looked at a Wazat, and I drew a sketch of a profile that appealed to me on a scrap of cardboard. Guess which one I keep coming back to in my mind. Guess which one I can picture at Poet Creek. Guess which one I know I would always regret if I did not see it through. This is a journey and, in a way, a tribute. My Dad would be pleased and proud of me for building this hitch; he'd think that I had accomplished something pretty cool!
I have spent zero $$$ on machining. All of the machining has been done at Karl's shop or at my work place off the clock (though I will likely offer Dave Z. a case of beer for his time just to show how grateful I am for his help and personal time). I get your frustration with engineers that have no real world experience, too, but we, none of us, are perfect either. We learn from our mistakes. The OZHitch self aligning feature is good and I am sure that at that weight rating under certain circumstances it would be quite beneficial.
Remember, I am sharing the design process with you all, so you are actually seeing me come through these issues as things progress (and I am further along now than what you have seen). I had already seen some flaws in my first iteration and have already done some rethinking here and there. By having the forward U-joint pin be removable (as opposed to the rear U-joint pin) I should be able to position the U-joint by hand, and jack the tongue up or down (just like the OZHitch guy did in the video). If I need to give a little tug on the tongue or bump it to the side with my knee a bit, I don't see how that is much different than getting a std ball to align. Since the TPCE will be much lighter than their 7k lb rating, I am betting that I will be okay w/o those alignment dogs. If I'm wrong, I'll be the first one to admit it! I also have the ability to do something about it if need be.
Thanks for sharing your opinion. All opinions and suggestions are welcome here. That's one of the great benefits of this site!!! We lay everything out there and everyone is free to choose for themselves which method works best for their own needs and abilities.
Stay tuned, update on pintle and sleeve machining (with pics) soon.
Camp on!