I've been pottering in the workshop again.
A few weeks ago I was very pleased when a good friend gave me an envelope with some bits and pieces in. They came from a nice old desk they have, which is sadly short of a few vital parts that hold the handles onto the drawers.
These are originals. I needed to make a matching threaded stud and another domed washer to go behind it, plus some nuts to fit whatever thread is on the existing studs.
I reckon I know how to do the stud but the domed back washer is a new one for me. Coincidentally, following @GaryR's thread about making gutter caps for his Japanese style shed, I've been reading up a bit about shaping metal and have watched a few videos, so it's a nice chance to turn theory into practice.
I have some suitable materials - a strip of unknown thin brass and a bit off an old ball valve that looked like it might come in handy one day:
I marked out a circle of about the right size and cut it out.
Some of you might be thinking that's a really manky bit of dovetailing, and I agree. In my defence, it's a practice joint I made when I was getting into proper woodworking, some 40 years ago probably. One day maybe I'll make something prettier, but it works ok for this.
The resulting disc needed to be properly round. I know I have a lathe for making things round, but working on a tiny thing like this probably needs some special arbor or something, so I kept things simple. I screwed the disc onto the edge of an offcut of wood, so it came a little bit above the edge. Then I filed across, using the wood as a guide, twisting the disc round and round.
Then I used the same offcut, since it was already in place in front of me, and filed a bit of a shallow groove into the end grain. Gently tapping with different sizes of ball pein hammer made it curve quite easily into a little dome.
Getting there:
You'll have noticed that the original washer has a sort of dimple on the front where the stud sits. This was my next little challenge. I thought I needed something to go under what I had made and support it while I punched the centre down with a round-ended tool. I was going to start turning a one-off backing piece on the wood lathe but I found this file handle instead. The original part sat on it very neatly, so thought I would take the easy option.
I knew that I needed to anneal the brass after the hammering I had already done. I did this on a spare tile, lying in our old sink as a nice non-combustible place, with a basic plumber's blowlamp.
I ground the end of a bit of steel into a half round of about the right size, clamped it all up in the vice and taped the work in place in case of bruised fingers.
That didn't really work, so I tried just holding it over a convenient hole in another offcut.
It certainly responded - all my previous shaping disappeared into flatness in one go! Here it is, next to the bulbous original.
Not so good!
I also noticed that my disc was clearly bigger than it needed to be, so I put it back on the filing guide and reduced it by about a millimetre all round.
Re-hammering the domed shape didn't take too long second time round and I was soon at this stage
I know that the square holes are different sizes. I think the original has opened up beyond what is needed, so my plan is to make the new stud fit the old hole, with some adjustment later on. (The stud will hide those rough lines from the end of the punch.)
The colour wasn't right, but once again this was easily changed with some Priory Polishes Patinating Fluid. It's a satisfyingly immediate transformation.
Stay tuned for part 2, The Stud. Will Joan Collins put in an appearance?*
*No.
What did you expect?!
A few weeks ago I was very pleased when a good friend gave me an envelope with some bits and pieces in. They came from a nice old desk they have, which is sadly short of a few vital parts that hold the handles onto the drawers.
These are originals. I needed to make a matching threaded stud and another domed washer to go behind it, plus some nuts to fit whatever thread is on the existing studs.
I reckon I know how to do the stud but the domed back washer is a new one for me. Coincidentally, following @GaryR's thread about making gutter caps for his Japanese style shed, I've been reading up a bit about shaping metal and have watched a few videos, so it's a nice chance to turn theory into practice.
I have some suitable materials - a strip of unknown thin brass and a bit off an old ball valve that looked like it might come in handy one day:
I marked out a circle of about the right size and cut it out.
Some of you might be thinking that's a really manky bit of dovetailing, and I agree. In my defence, it's a practice joint I made when I was getting into proper woodworking, some 40 years ago probably. One day maybe I'll make something prettier, but it works ok for this.
The resulting disc needed to be properly round. I know I have a lathe for making things round, but working on a tiny thing like this probably needs some special arbor or something, so I kept things simple. I screwed the disc onto the edge of an offcut of wood, so it came a little bit above the edge. Then I filed across, using the wood as a guide, twisting the disc round and round.
Then I used the same offcut, since it was already in place in front of me, and filed a bit of a shallow groove into the end grain. Gently tapping with different sizes of ball pein hammer made it curve quite easily into a little dome.
Getting there:
You'll have noticed that the original washer has a sort of dimple on the front where the stud sits. This was my next little challenge. I thought I needed something to go under what I had made and support it while I punched the centre down with a round-ended tool. I was going to start turning a one-off backing piece on the wood lathe but I found this file handle instead. The original part sat on it very neatly, so thought I would take the easy option.
I knew that I needed to anneal the brass after the hammering I had already done. I did this on a spare tile, lying in our old sink as a nice non-combustible place, with a basic plumber's blowlamp.
I ground the end of a bit of steel into a half round of about the right size, clamped it all up in the vice and taped the work in place in case of bruised fingers.
That didn't really work, so I tried just holding it over a convenient hole in another offcut.
It certainly responded - all my previous shaping disappeared into flatness in one go! Here it is, next to the bulbous original.
Not so good!
I also noticed that my disc was clearly bigger than it needed to be, so I put it back on the filing guide and reduced it by about a millimetre all round.
Re-hammering the domed shape didn't take too long second time round and I was soon at this stage
I know that the square holes are different sizes. I think the original has opened up beyond what is needed, so my plan is to make the new stud fit the old hole, with some adjustment later on. (The stud will hide those rough lines from the end of the punch.)
The colour wasn't right, but once again this was easily changed with some Priory Polishes Patinating Fluid. It's a satisfyingly immediate transformation.
Stay tuned for part 2, The Stud. Will Joan Collins put in an appearance?*
*No.
What did you expect?!
