Take your time. Make sure to wear protection. Nasty stuff that is. Tom Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
If I decide to do a bunch of it, I certainly will. With this tiny amount, I'm just being very careful (did the cutting outdoors, kept my face well away from the tubes, rinsed everything well, and washed up immediately after finishing. Grinding is being done wet, which means no dust flying around).
Update on the handles. I'm taking time today to grind out the ends of the carbon fiber rods so I can send off handles to people. Thanks to @Jorvaljr, I have several sets of ends to use for sizing. _They're different sizes_. The 1907 OLD I have has almost double the length of insert rod for the threaded knob as the ones that @Jorvaljr sent. I haven't checked the other one I have that I can dismantle, but I suspect it's the same (it's a 1917 set) as his. The end knob is narrower in diameter than the threaded knob - which explains why they're so easily lost. They'll come out of the cracked end faster. It also explains why it's the threaded end that breaks more often, or more violently - more hoop stress, rather than being where people wave it around. Even better. The two sets that were sent, one of them is narrower than the other. I haven't broken out the calipers yet to see what the difference might be. The first handle I drilled out (as seen in early photos), has holes that are too large in diameter for the bright gold set that Jorvaljr sent. However, it fits the beat up brass set he sent slightly more loose than my silver set used for testing - which means its fine for that. I may have to custom grind a tapered stone to make handles to fit everything. For right now, I'm going to get these going, and send them off. I may also have to ask people to simply send me the ends of theirs, and I send back full handles. I already thought Gillette's ideas of engineering was bad. Now I know their quality control sucked as well - at least during the OLD/NEW period. (where they used the hollow tube handles) I've seen more than one cracked NEW common bar handle, but they seem to have corrected it by the time they went to the fat handle tech - which uses the same inserted knobs as the NEW common bar handle. Either that, or they just used more brass in the tube.
Wanted to give you an update - making sure everything was wet eliminated the flying powder problem. I just had to clean up the splatters before they fully dried.
Here's the first finished product. I'm trying to be very careful of the lacquer finish, it's original, and intact (mostly). Looks like they did the lacquer as a dip, based on the crevices and ball end. This one is _slightly_ longer than the original 2 inch, but I felt it 'right' that it be that way with the gold. It's about the length of a Fendrihan generic, I believe. I'll be sending it back with the original handle, so that @Jorvaljr has all the original parts. This one is with the handle screwed into a 1907 OLD head.
Doing Gun Kote now to the old. I blasted the pieces with glass beads. I forgot to take a before picture. Here is a few shots of in process This will be coated black These obviously are red in the oven now curing Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Beautiful and functional mixing of Vintage and Space Age materials. The Style has been adopted by Steampunks. You may have a marketable product.
You'll probably want to buff off the guncote from the insertion points. The tolerances are that tight. Do you have a Dremel (or clone?)
The coating is only .0004 thick 4ths of one thousandth well within a press fit of this type of part. Besides. When I blasted them I removed all silver plating and base plating. I should be good to go. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Shoot me a PM with your address and I can send my end pieces tomorrow. As they will be done curing in about 15 minutes. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
PM sent. I'm definitely going to have to look for a batch of larger grinding stones, and figure out how to taper them so I can do a straight bore under water. I think the water is helping with the cutting even more than keeping the dust down; it's acting as a lubricant to pull the swarf out. If I had a long, tapered stone, I could just insert it and bore out to the right diameter in a single motion. I'd still have to change the depth depending on the ends, but it would take two minutes per handle, rather than half an hour.
If you have a dressing stone, I can send you this stone. Then you can shape it to what you need. Let me know and I will send it with my parts. Tom Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
The pieces are red because that is the color I chose. The base plate will be the only piece painted black. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
No need to, thanks. What I'm eyeballing is getting a 10mm tapered tip and working it down to the 8.3 or so that I need. Right now, I'm using a 6mm (approximately) cylindrical tip to work it out gradually. I think my first purchase, however, will simply be a set of 8mm tapered bits, maybe diamond. The reason I was asking if you had a dremel is that if you wanted, I'd do the preliminary shaping, and you could just widen it enough. Sending them to me works, and I'll send them back. (rubber mallets are your friend...)
