Some prep and a reflector mod. Warning, image heavy
Of course I didn’t bring everything I needed for all of the work I could have done and still can’t use the hand for much(shouldn’t as much as can’t) but there’s some prep to do first anyway. I need to join the threaded copper core to the front of the head using brass sheet brazed to both. I need to somehow ensure that the two pieces will end up axially aligned and not skewed or off center. The first thing to do is square the ends of each piece. For the copper I laid the piece on a square to find the short side and put some tape there. Then sanded until the tape had worn through. This removed a bit more from the longer edge and after repeating 8-10 times the piece was as square as I could make it. The brass piece was likewise taped and sanded but to find some semblance of square I used the wood collar moving the collar all the way around and marking the low point to find the average. The brass sheet will be brazed to this piece first then a 1/8” hole drill as close to center as I can and widened to ~3/16” adjusting to center as needed. This part I can’t do as I forgot the hack saw and screwed up one piece trying to cut it with the recip saw(just can’t hold it well enough yet). I could however make the jig that will hold the copper piece centered on the brass hole. I purchased a couple 1/8” fender washers and reamed the center hole to just barely fit a 10-32 machine screw then filed and sanded the outside to just fit into the threaded copper core. The nut will space the washer above the brass sheet so that the washer isn’t brazed as well. The gap between the nut and the copper should be sufficient to prevent even the nut but especially the washer from being brazed but won’t be a serious issue even if it does, we’ll just have to wait and see on that though.
On to more stuff. I like this reflector, it’s nice and deep, more so than a P60 reflector that fits a bit loosely. The problem is it doesn’t fit into the bezel. Or into the head. So I need to file/sand about .5 mm from the lip and make the second step disappear into the taper of the sides. I’ll also have to bevel the inside of the head to match. Just covering the openings with tape would be easy and keep debris out of the reflector but would also pull the coating from the leading edge. Instead I used a rubber washer, a machine screw and acorn nut(all I had that fit) and a few extra metal washers to both take up the slack and compress the rubber one against the reflector. I used an exacto knife to trim the rubber flush to the edge. After that I traded the larger washers for ones a tad smaller than the reflector but still big enough to compress the rubber and started filing. It took several sessions because of the wrist but first I got the lip to fit into the bezel. And then the second step filed and sanded to match the tapered sides. It won’t fit any deeper into the head until I bevel that but the bezel is just about perfect. :+1:
Thanks for checking in. Feedback keeps me going.
Brazing the head