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Razor Re-scaling

M

mysteryrazor

Well-Known Member
I just read Ray Habyans excellent article on re-scaling in the information mine. I use a very similar method. I dimple the washers. Besides giving a neater look dimpling also causes the bore of the washer to taper. That taper is noticeable with my 30x loupe. The taper allows the pin to expand into the taper and the pin can hold firm with a smaller head above the washer. By bore I mean the hole, the washer is installed dome up.

Before making the pins I anneal the brass rod. When My wife is not looking I heat a section of the rod to red heat on the gas range and quench in water. Naturally you could take the time to lite your torch etc. I hold the annealed rod in a modified needle nose pliers and pre-head one end.

I usually re-saw a batch of hardwood and assemble a group of blanks. I spot the surface of the material with contact cement and glue into a pair. I then mark and band saw into blanks. After drilling and shaping the scales are separated with a razor knife.
 
picard-sigh.jpg
 
Hi Jay,

Thank you for your post. You're welcome to start topics about your work on razors. However, you are not welcome to promote your business on the forums. Our rules are specific about that. You can use our Marketplace to offer items for sale, but also there, some rules need to be followed.
mysteryrazor said:
Before making the pins I anneal the rod. When My wife is not looking I heat a section of the rod to red heat on the gas range and quench in water. Naturally you could take the time to lite your torch etc. I hold the annealed rod in a modified needle nose pliers and pre-head one end.
Click to expand...
I am afraid that information is wrong. Annealing is done by heating carbon steel to a red hot state, and subsequently cool it as slow as possible. In a do-it-yourself setup, this can be done by burying the object in ashes, and let is sit for 24 hours or so. I am not a specialist, so hopefully someone will chime in with the details. But by quenching in water, you are rather hardening the rod to a brittle state, which is the opposite of annealing. That is, if the rod is material that can be hardened in the first place.

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
Ok a couple of points, the market place is the only place that anyone here can offer goods or services for sale.

As far as annealing goes, for metals containing iron indeed the cooling must be done slowly, I do this for the Coil cores on my handmade Tattoo Machines, however for non ferrous metals e.g. brass the cooling can be done quickly.

Put very simply annealing aims to soften the metal, of course all metals become soft when heated until glowing, the secret is keeping them soft once cool again, if we quench metal with iron in it becomes hard again due to its structure, metals without iron (non Ferrous) dont display the same properties.

Heres the more scientific answer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annealing_(metallurgy)

Regards
Ralfson (Dr)
 
Thank you Bart. How do I access the market place? By the way the pin and washer material is brass. When annealed it heads much better.
 
How about removing the offending part of your post. Minimum courtesy and all that.
 
Thanks for sharing.

Indeed, brass and nickel silver can be annealed. Those folks who reload ammunition know that bass shells become work-hardened and brittle after firing, and will fail if not annealed before reloading. But unlike ferrous metals it doesn’t matter if the brass is quenched or allowed to cool slowly after red heat, it will be annealed so long as it’s brought up to a low red heat.

For pins it is sometimes a good idea to anneal the brass or nickel silver before pinning because it makes the pin softer and you can use lighter taps to mushroom the head, the metal will again become work-hardened by the time the joint is tight.

As an extra precaution I will try to heat only just the end of the rod and quench quickly, this will make the end to be mushroomed soft, but the rest of the pin is still hard and is less likely to bend while pinning… the needle-nose pliers does help.
 
True there is uniformity in nature. Like I used to explain to the jet engine mechanics. Working on engines was like reloading. You fire them up and then trim them and when they crack you throw them away. They did not get the joke either. At that time we did not think we would get an RB211 to stay on the wing over 200 hours.
 
Annealing brass... I stand corrected.

Thanks for the clarification, fellows.

:thumbup:

Bart.
 
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