Does anybody know how to repair a cracked handle like this one? Or, does anybody happen to have one of these tube pieces with good plating on it?
Maybe a two part epoxy like JB Weld? Gentlely clamp together and wipe off the excess before it hardens.
They're pretty hard to find with out cracks. Either the plugs expands or the tubing shrinks. I have a ball end New handle and it has 2 very small cracks at either end and they're 45 degrees apart so they're not bot on the seam where the metal was joined.
For that big of a crack you could try this. Marine epoxy to seal the crack then perhaps some gold leaf to fill in the gap. It has been my experience that you really can't clamp the crack together. Marine epoxy, at least mine is gray and dries that way. I think you can by clear stuff but I am unsure of this.
Here's and article Gio wrote on restoring a three piece. His breaks down to a handle and two head pieces. Filling the handle with epoxy doesn't interfere with the assembly. Yours had a seperate tightening knob that drops out of the bottomos the handle. The handle is supposed to stay fastened to the base plate of the head. I've been thinking about how to do this as I have several I's like to fix up. The best way I came up with is to do the same thing Gio did, but insert a copper tube inside the handle to keep the tightening knob from being epoxied to the handle tube. The only other idea I came up with is to grind the socket on the top plug so it is loose in the handle tube. Then epoxy the tightening knob to the handle tube so they become a single piece. Now the three pieces are the handle tube+tightening knob, the base plate+top plug, and the top plate. I think the tricks here would be 1) to make sure the tightening know is straight inside the handle, and 2) making sure that no epoxy obsures the top of the handle tube so the screw can reach the threads inside the handle. Hmmm, I might have to illustrate... Hope that helps!
