Make a wedge
Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2011 10:27 am
Duane Ausherman wrote:Don't bother trying to make one, as the original is hardened. It must grip the chrome and it is hard. Mild steel won't touch the chrome. Besides, they are only $10. Yes, you need two.
Why not try to make one? I haven't done it myself, but I think I could. I would get an old file and anneal it. Probably one would want to start with a triangular file. I would then take the file, heat it to a glowing cherry red, and then place it in a bed of ashes, such as fireplace ashes. The idea, of course is for the file to go from glowing cherry red to cool enough to handle over a protracted period of time. Or you might simply throw the old file into the coals of a roaring fireplace, and then wait until everything was cold.
Then I would simply file on the old annealed file until it was the shape I was looking for. That's how the old blacksmiths did it and, I believe, how a lot of machine parts were made back in the olden days. I saw some pics once of J.M. Browning's workshop (the genius inventor of so many firearms) and if I remember correctly the most complicated "machine" I saw was a post drill press.
Going on, I reckon that one of the file's toothed flats, left untouched, would provide the teeth needed to grip the hard chrome coated bars. You might be surprised how precise a part you could make.
Then, finally, you would re-harden the steel. For that you would re-heat the newly fabricated piece to glowing cherry red and drop it into a bucket of water. And now you have the wedge you need. I wouldn't worry about tempering the piece to a lesser hardness since the part doesn't need to be ductile.
Or you could pony up the $10 plus shipping and buy one.
Airhead loves, for the most part, seem to have a quality about them which some would call cheap. But there's something else to be said about the satisfaction of making a part, sometimes better than can be bought.
(editing) Or, I suppose, one could do the fabrication without the annealing and re-hardening process. In such a case you would take a triangular file and then with judicious application of a right angle grinder and/or a Dremel tool with grinding stones and a cutting disk, grind that sucker into shape. Of course, like grinding drill bits, there is the constant danger of overheating the work and screwing up the heat treatment.
Ken
