I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on a technique to duplicate the old way of collarless pinning without breaking scales? I figure annealing the pin good and prayer/meditation is in order.Nervous to attempt. Thanks in advance!
Printable View
I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on a technique to duplicate the old way of collarless pinning without breaking scales? I figure annealing the pin good and prayer/meditation is in order.Nervous to attempt. Thanks in advance!
If I was going to try collarless pinning of ivory I would practice on pieces of acrylic until I felt some confidence in my ability.:gl:
Good idea. It might instill some false confidence, though! I thought I might try it on some broken ivory? I wonder if there is a hollow pointed punch available to get the domed effect as well.
You can use a Nail Set to get the effect you want - BUT- be careful as the Nail Set takes away feel... I use it for Washerless peens only at the very last stages more for looks then tightness... You still have to rotate and move the tool around as you tap..
Stanley Hand Tools-58-230*3 Piece Assorted Square Head Nail Set
I actually did one of these last night. I transferred an MK10 I had to a set of Ivory scales that had a junked blade in it. I was just extremely careful while pinning and did a ton of light taps. They turned out pretty good and I'll try to snap a pic this evening.
The first time I tried this though I definitely broke the ivory scales. I'm sure there is a better method to what I have done so far in trying.
Why not just use a very fine collar?
I suppose on a restore your correct,I made these Ivory scales last week and used a slightly oversized pin and very fine SS washers (pins were .066) annealed nickle silver.
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...ne/restore.jpg
This is a great response! The teeny collars might be the answer! You cannot really see them. Does that add to stability while peening? I would think guys sat around all day peening these! I wonder what the "attrition rate" was? Nowadays, we hate to bust ivory, but back then, who knows? Thank you all! If one was to use a proper sized nailset/hollow punch, I see a need for a block of steel with dimples. different sizes. I have heard of a "dimpling block" , but wonder if this is something you can buy, or is it made? Thx
I think it is called a 'doming block' IIRC. I've seen someone post about it and they sell them at harbor freight and elsewhere. I've seen photos and a vid or two of workman pinning razors and pocket knives and they aren't cautious, just expert.
Great idea! I have used layers of tape to protect scales in the past. This makes sense! Thx
Dimpling block would be nice,But I'm cheap,body and fender dolly,auto parts store < 5bux.
poke some dimples in it of various sizes with drill bits,done,works for me.
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...cone/dolly.jpg
I found it! Knew it was in that cabinet!
Now I have a picture in my head.........Me, holding the razor on this rocking thing with one pin in a dimple while holding a nailset, while tapping with a hammer! I have 4 hands, no sweat!:rofl2:
I think I will start with grinding the bottom of the dolly until it sits nice and stable. Some technique will be necessary! If I can figure this out, I can complete lots of projects!
If You have a disc sander,just lay the flat part of the dolly on the table and push.have fun:)
Ivory is actually alot tougher than most people realize,but the possibiliy of disaster is real for sure.
While on the subject,I restore clocks as a hobby,alot of clock makers tools are very usefull in Razor restoration,such as clock hand removal tools,Cannot be beat for a gentle way of removing old bent pins,another real possibility for cracking scales.
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../pinpusher.jpg
I agree, why should they have to be collarless? I've just been making my own turned rivets from sterling silver, for an 1830s razor for which nickel silver is probably out of period. It is soft and easily peened, and probably needs to be a bit larger to obtain adequate strength. I found that the junction between pin and collar became completely invisible.
You can get telescoping sizes of brass tube in many model-making shops and probably on eBay, and the chances of cracking should be much lessened by using not just a washer, but a piece of tubing epoxied in for the full thickness of the scale.
I liked the idea of a concave punch to finish off the rivet, but that, because it bears on a large area, would require to be whacked rather harder than the usual large number of taps with a light hammer. So it would still have to be used with caution, and I think its main function would be ensuring perfect roundness for a rivet and collar already worked on with the hammer.
With me it isn't clocks, but antique pocket watches. This picture is a staking set, which is like a tiny drill press with no motor, used for hitting vertically aligned punches with a hammer. Complete sets are very expensive, but you will find part-sets cheap if you watch eBay for a while. I haven't seen a punch with a cup-shapped recess, but one could be made, 3/16in. steel rod being the common size.
I would position the carbide or diamond round-nosed burrs I have for use with my Dremel tool, in one of the holes in the staking-tool table. Or I would temporarily epoxy something onto the table to hold a small ball-bearing, and hammer the annealed steel punch against the bearing to make the hollow. Using one of the holes in the table to hold the bearing would damage its edges.
While we are on the subject, why are most ivory scales washerless? Is there a reason for it? I would have thought that if ever a material needed a washer it would be a thin natural one prone to cracking.
The trouble with a jeweller's dimpling block is that you can't hit the rivet head with the dimple... This is not a facetious comment. If the scale rests with the downward end of the rivet in the dimple, you will tend to get more deformity on the upper end, which you are actually hitting with the hammer.
The only way to deform them equally is to do it with slow, steady pressure, as in a press. It wouldn't be sufficiently confined to the two domed ends, as you would need in ivory (in fact a very light hammer will be deforming only a tiny cup-shaped "skin" on the outside of the rivet dome. Pressing will shorten and swell the shank of the rivet, which is great for ship's plates, except that it was a great fault to place the rivets too close together, as the internal swelling could make the plate tear along the dotted line. But the shank is out of sight, and lacks the control to avoid cracking the ivory.
The only way to deform just one head is to hit it lightly and repetitively with a hammer or punch, while the otherb end rests on a piece of nylon, lead, etc.
Not really out of period - the silverless alloy known as german silver, nickel silver, argentan and cupro nickel has - at least in the last alloy named, been used for centuries.
I don't know, but IMO ivory was not a common material but an upmarket one - even in the days of vast stockpiles of it, it was used for the more expensive razors rather than common horn for the everyday articles. Given that fact, that method of pinning was probably used because it took more skill to do, and is redolent of jewellers and fine jewellery, so it matched expensive scale material well.
Regards,
Neil
That is both true and untrue, although your reply has inspired me for the first time to look it up: Cupronickel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cupro-nickel alloys had been produced in Germany for centuries indeed, but they were smelted from mixed ores. At least in the early days, I doubt if people quite knew what they were making, when they produced a different and for most purposes better variety of brass. It became well understood, and commercially manufactured, in Europe, in the 1820s. But I think that would be for tableware etc., and I think it is true that rods, wires and rivets suited to the razor-maker weren't a common article of commerce until approximately mid-Victorian times. A razor from the 1830s is far more likely to be rivetted with brass, copper or silver.
Dunno,Maybe it's just me being a simpleton,I see no rocket science in Razor rivits.
I can make a perfectally servicable rivet out of a coat hanger:)
Caledonian - I don't think it is untrue - uproven maybe, but thats a question of semantics and speculation. Neither of us knows for sure - how could we? - so all we can do is speculate.
The chinese produced cupro-nickel - even if they didn't know the technicalities of how they were making it - many, many centuries ago. One of its names was white copper or white bronze, and it became widely exported. The peak european usage and importation of it was from 1750 - 1800: Queen Victoria wasn't born until 1819, so its use definitely predates victorian times!
Although it was used for the things you suggest, it was also used by jewellers, and making wire out of ingots by swaging or other means is a basic jewellers and smiths skill that goes back to at least ancient egyptian times. Places responsible for producing razors often had their own foundries, and certainly most of them had their own smiths. Forging and tempering were in-house everyday occurrences. Even in the 1900s places like Raggs were producing their own domed washers and metal inlays. Why buy things in when you can make them in-house?
Like Pixelfixed jokingly suggests, its not rocket science.
Regards,
Neil
I decided to give it a go. Old School! I cut some pieces of Ivory from a broken scale and drilled them 1/16 and slightly chamfered the outside of the holes with a larger bit. I put it all together and sized my pin where I thought it should be. I then removed the pin and held it in the middle with needlenosed pliers and heated each end with a propane torch until the flame changed color a bit, and immediately dunked it in water, one side at a time. I reinstalled the pin and proceeded with light taps on one side until it began to mushroom. I was tapping on the side as much as I could to try and dome the pin. After a bit, I turned it over and pushed the pin through and did the other side. I wondered at some point if I had made the pin too long, but it turned out I had it about right to begin with, I continued tapping at a slant and had to move the hammer often to keep the face high and off the ivory. At some point it started to get tight in the scales, so I made sure the pin was centered at that point and continued with the process. I was using very light taps and actually hit the ivory some, but I kept the tapping so light, It would not have broken the ivory. Flipping and tappin, keeping moving and paying attention to my hammer, eventually it all worked well. I tried to see how tight I could get it! Really tight! I then buffed the pins and am very happy with the function and looks! Now to try it on some nice scales!;)
That is mostly right, and excellent work. But you would reduce the nerve strain and the difficulty of estimating the right length of pin, if you peened and shaped the domed head on one end before putting the pin in place. A keyed electric drill chuck, used as a vice, would hold it tightly enough.
Great job,I think chamfering the pin hole is the key to success with Ivory. can be funny stuff.
Good advise! I had tried to do it in the past, but using a vise. It slightly deformed the pin and I was afraid it would lead to a bent pin. The drill chuck in a vise sounds cool. A small spacer pin on the inside for the pin to bottom out on would require less pressure needed to hold it tight as well. Thanks!
I felt better about it. I also wonder if chamfering the inside of the hole would be a good idea? Could not hurt! I was amazed at how tight the pin got inside the Ivory! The pins really swell up as you lightly peen. I wondered if slightly oversizing the pin holes would be a good idea, but all the ones I have disassembled were not, at least that I could tell. What are your thoughts on that? Thanks!
One thing I do know from a metal working standpoint at least,is a chamferd hole distributes stress alot better than one that is not.
As I have said above,Ivory is alot stronger than people realize,Is just unpredictable.
Nice work - looks perfect. You did it the old original way too - without doming the end of the pin. Most silversmiths do it that way too, and the videos I have seen from the 70s - 80s show people working in Sheffield razor factories doing it the way you did. It's a bit too risky for me - I dome one end - but I suppose if you were doing it all day every day you get to know whats what!
I always use a tapered ream to make the hole conical - it helps to accommodate the percussion bulge at the top of the pin, and I always make the hole a bit wider than the pin. Ivory shrinks and swells with the ambient temp and atmosphere, and if it shrinks on an already too tight pin it can crack - I see this on loads of old razors. Interestingly, it seems to happen on one side more than the other - usually the back scale in most of the ones I see. I must have about 30 or so rear scales, all cracked at the pin, and only half a dozen top scales.
Regards,
Neil
Many Thanks, Neil. The tapered reaming of the hole makes sense! We know how difficult it is to remove this type of pin from ivory, and I think this bulge you speak of is the culprit! I wonder why the back scale is often cracked? Perhaps the natural pressure on it during the return stroke while stropping? This is very good advise from all! :)Tom
I thought I would share my pinning anvil I dreamed up as a result of this thread and everyone's fine advise!:idea: I was tired of going out to the hot shop and using the anvil on my vise to pin, and I liked the idea of using a drill chuck to dome pins, so I welded up an old Jeep spring shackle for a base and a discarded fork tube from my old CZ dirtbike, along with a hunk of 3/4 steel, drilled out and tapped in the middle to accept a drill chuck/rocker stud! I can now sit in my chair, rest my feet on the base and dome pins, remove the chuck and pin on it. I will probably make some doming divots in it as well. Domed my first pin on it and it worked well. I am already thinking of a bolt to thread in there, drilled out in the middle, for tapping pins out. I wonder how many old pins the fork tube will hold? It will be nice to have, I think!
I didn't mean the drill chuck should be held in a vice, although it could. Or bolted to a vice, for I believe many of them have standard Unified threads. But I think still attached to the drill, and rested on your thigh, would give all the inertia you need for this job.
On the other hand if you have a spare layin around is always nice to have a dedicated tool:)
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...one/jacobs.jpg
I have done the wedge end of 2 razors. Pain in the ass! Had to redo the big one again. But I am learning about annealing and it is truly interesting. Seems if you heat it too much, the pin leans over fast! Satisfied with these. I hope the experience helps on the pivot end!;)
Nice work and some great advice being contributed. Is the heat necessary ? Would you recommend heating the pin ends for pinning acrylic or celluloid as well ?