04-11-2012, 07:53 PM
I'm back on the job. I hadn't realised it had been so long.
Lawrence kindly sent me some spare wafers which look the biz. So, I decided to practice with one of them. Step one is extracting the rivet which holds a contact in place. In the usual manner these are hollow. First I tried the usual method of drilling. The snag with this method is that the rivet almost always spins before it's released, and sure enough it did. Next I tried filing it with a needle file. This was pretty successful apart from chucking a lot of brass filings about and requiring a lot of pressure. Finally I tried my (pretend) Dremmel with a small stone. That worked best but was quite difficult to control. After removing one side of the rivet it was easy to push out the rest.
Now for a trial refit. For this I used a brass 8BA nut and bolt and a couple of washers. It's easy to tighten it up sufficiently, and I expect a dab of Araldite, Loctite or solder will stop it coming undone.
So, Next the real thing, which will be more interesting. Tomorrow is SWMBO's birthday so there'll be a short delay.
The Eagle-eyed will notice that I broke the trial wafer. Still, it's better than breaking the real one. Also, I think my fingers have got bigger and my eyesight a lot worse since I last did this sort of thing.
Alan
Lawrence kindly sent me some spare wafers which look the biz. So, I decided to practice with one of them. Step one is extracting the rivet which holds a contact in place. In the usual manner these are hollow. First I tried the usual method of drilling. The snag with this method is that the rivet almost always spins before it's released, and sure enough it did. Next I tried filing it with a needle file. This was pretty successful apart from chucking a lot of brass filings about and requiring a lot of pressure. Finally I tried my (pretend) Dremmel with a small stone. That worked best but was quite difficult to control. After removing one side of the rivet it was easy to push out the rest.
Now for a trial refit. For this I used a brass 8BA nut and bolt and a couple of washers. It's easy to tighten it up sufficiently, and I expect a dab of Araldite, Loctite or solder will stop it coming undone.
So, Next the real thing, which will be more interesting. Tomorrow is SWMBO's birthday so there'll be a short delay.
The Eagle-eyed will notice that I broke the trial wafer. Still, it's better than breaking the real one. Also, I think my fingers have got bigger and my eyesight a lot worse since I last did this sort of thing.
Alan
