For thirty+ years I've tried to find coil adjustment tools for everything from miniature coils in certain RCI models (even smaller) up to the larger coils found in some very vintage ham gear and CB's. The ones I have the most problems with are the ones found in a typical Cobra 29 LTD or Galaxy DX radio 933, 44, etc). I buy fresh tools, only to have them break within weeks, sometimes days. I end up whittling them down to the proper dimension, which lasts again for days or weeks, only to repeat the process. I sometimes have luck melting the tips and forming them into the coil, but that often leaves overshoot material which must be whittled back anyway. As a backup, I worked a small sliver of aluminum down to fit in those cans and glued it to an old plastic tuning stick that was broken. With care this works ok, but because there is still some interaction magnetically, it takes some additional tweaking. I understand the risk of damaging a slug, but I am careful enough that that doesn't happen. At any rate, the question to my fellow professional technicians who frequent this board is, what is your preferred brand/model of tuning tools for this application? Durability is by far the top priority.
