Just one of those projects!

[G.T.]

Hi to all, I'm currently deep into drum revision and seem to have little time or even little energy to tackle any other projects big or small? But, sometimes, (there is never really a good time? ) you dwell on a project that has bugged you for years, and you suddenly decide to make time and try to solve a repair riddle. Two overlying factors are, it has to be something rare, otherwise some one would already be doing it, and second, it, the repair, has to be relatively cheap so that it is worth doing? So it is with a facet of magazine repair i have always thought about but never up till now, considered trying. And that is repairing Luger magazine follower buttons when the little teat breaks off in the follower causing the button to spin loosely, and/or come out and bind up?
Well, recently, one of my customers had an extremely nice all original Dutch mag and it suffered from just that issue. It seemed a shame to replace it with the closest available button, and the broken part was excellent in every other respect. So, I decided to repair it? It took only an hour or so, but I spent about 20 hours just thinking about how and what I was going to do and use.
The first hurdle was to make a one shot shade-tree collet to hold the button shank so that it was both tight and concentric in the lathe! After that I used a center drill to start my hole in the follower button shaft, and then proceeded to drill with a number 50 W.G. drill (.070") to a depth of approx. .250" So far so good! I then used a finishing nail that measured .071" to .072" dia. and cut off an ample length and ground the ends flat, so now I have a long skinny pin.
I then put the pin in a cordless drill, and using some W/D 220 just sanded about .001" or less off of one end of the pin. I'm pretty much at a slight interference fit at this point, probably more like .0005" over on the pin. Resting the head of the follower button on a piece of plastic on top of a steel bar, I tapped the pin into the follower button shaft and using a Dremel, cut and ground to length! On some test pieces, I could hardly remove the pin from the part even with a side cutters? It is really in there! The last operation prior to installation was to take a small torch and anneal just the end of the pin to soften/prep it for the riveting operation! Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy, it worked out perfectly... So, now the elves have another little skill they can perform even if it is one you'll probably never need! Best to all, til.....lat'r.....GT..

BTW, why the annealing on the nail pin when /after installation? Well, the nails are pretty good steel to begin with and through out the nail making operation nail wire is drawn thru successively small dia. dies, and every time that happens it causes the nail wire to become slightly harder, it is called skin hardened! (also known as a form of work hardened)The drawing heading and forming operations that follow impart some additional hardness as well. All of this just because of the number of operations needed to make a nail into a nail? The above description of work hardening is great for making a nail better, kind of self tempering, but not so much that they become brittle, in fact some items are stress relieved after manufacture to make them more consistent and in some cases stronger then an un-stress relieved part. Well for a small delicate rivet that I needed to produce, the hardened state of the nail meant that I was going to have to use excessive force the "set" the rivet part? After installation of the pin and annealing with the small torch, it reduced the steel back to it's original, pre work hardened state... riveted like butter, just right..... and there you have it.. best to all, til...lat'r....GT