Pinning up a razor today that I've been working on off and on for a while. I got collars picked out, decided to go with nickel silver pins, got the wedge end pinned up only to realize that the one remaining peice of n/s pin I had was just barely too short. CRAP! Now I'm bummed because I stoked to get it back together and am stalled half way through pinning. I did have plenty of brass pin but that would look stupid to have one pinned with brass and the other n/s. I guess I have to order more pin stock but that really stinks that I have to wait. Then the wheels start turning and I said to myself, "Self, you have time on your hands and you have buckets of n/s scrap keys. Hmmmm."
You can see where this is going right?
First attemp:
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Cut the bottom rib off an old key, hammered it to square, put it in the drill chuck and spun it while hammering it to roundish. It actually worked but the folding created a fault which snapped while pinning.
Back to the drawing board.
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Took a different key and ground it round, put it in the drill and ran it while holding the pin against the belt until it was the right diameter. That took a little doing but it worked. I wound up getting the razor pinned up and finished as I had hoped.
I
will say that this was not an efficient use of time or resources and the better route would have been to just
buy some pin rod BUT, in a pinch it worked, got me finished and none would ever be the wiser.