Thread: 3 Panel MOP Scales Project

What a wonderful job, And great step by step process.
Thanks,

Oh my, what a job! I can't wait to see the rest of this story, I am certain those are going to be stunning.
Thank you for sharing

Nice work! As having worked often with old, lined mop-paneled scales, I would recommend keeping adhesive from the joints between the panels. They need somewhere to flex a bit! It should turn out great!

Update!

So, I took the scales off of the clamps, and then I scraped off all of the paper that was super glued on the nickel sheeting. Then, I took my 1/16" Drill bit and drilled right through all of the holes that were in the nickel sheeting straight through the 3 MOP panels on the other side. This made it so that the holes were perfectly positioned. Obviously I have quite a bit of excess MOP material hanging off the sides. that is OK though!



Then, I sanded the MOP side flat with my disc sander. This ground down the excess nickel sheeting that was sticking out on the panel dividers.



I was then able to do the whole thing over again on the other side. I trimmed up the MOP pieces to the correct dimensions, and then epoxied them in place, starting with the center piece:



And then I put in my nickel panel dividers and epoxied in the other two panels:



You can see the dividers sticking out. All that excess material will go away after it sets up!



Thats it for tonight!

I can't wait to see the final product. You'r work is always so clean Brad.

Brad, this is a fascinating process and a great tutorial in itself !!....Looking forward to the conclusion.
Bongo

Here we go!

First, I unclamped the scales. The epoxy set extremely solid.



I took it to the belt sander, and flattened out the pile side scale



After that, I used the pre-drilled holes on the front scale to drill through the pile side scale.



I then did some more profiling with the belt sander, and when I started getting close to my original tracings, I took the original scale and I bolted it on to the the MOP scales so that I had an exact profile to match.



You can see a little bit of excess material that I had to grind down.



After a little more sanding, I was close to the original profile



You can see no overhangs now

Then, I spent about 30 minutes on the belt sander, very carefully and slowly thinning out the scales (they started around .125" ea, and I thinned them to approx .11"). MOP chips easily, and sands slowly, so, it was a delicate process.



So, it was on to hand sanding. I started at 220 grit and went to town.



With every grit, it got prettier and prettier



After a buff, I was just stunned!



Unfortunately, there was no time to enjoy. it was on to the next step. I started to carefully pin the panels on to the nickel liners, one hole at a time



After each of them were pinned, I buffed up the heads on the MOP side



Then I ran some 1000 grit sandpaper along the back side of the scales (the nickel sheeting, and then gave them a quick buff. A final buff will come later.

That's it for today! Still a few steps to go!

Stunning stuff Brad.
When you pinned the MOP to the liners, did you peen with a hammer or flare them with a pin press? Just curious.
Really excellent results. Be proud.
Adam