Entry posted by richbrummitt
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No update last week because after I had fitted the first of my revised TOU mechanisms and feeling good about it I moved on to the others only to discover that the rebates in the other board were not as deep by 0.8mm!
Oh-oh! 
I had to make the rebate deeper somehow and really didn't want to be rebuilding the switches. Inspiration came to me quickly and I was able to achieve the unthinkable in a reasonably short space of time.
I used a 3mm graver for the one nearest the board edge where the facia was not in the way but there was no way I was going to fit the graver in the other spaces without grinding 75%+ off the length and resharpening. Another bit of useful quick thinking occurred. I really have excelled this week. Taking out the Minicraft and an abrasive wheel I set to work on a 3/16" tool blank to create a makeshift graver with the same section as the square section brass. I stoned the end off and set to work.
The switch blades were removed for safe keeping and the rear siding was broken away carefully with a chisel for re-fixing later to improve access. (The rear siding needed to be realigned anyway so this wasn't a hardship.) Using a block of wood behind the blunt end provided a sizeable handle and prevented bruised and dented fingers. The tool could also be used as a check for depth because of it's shared size with the brass section.
A couple of hours later and all the TOUs were installed. I fixed them with a couple of dabs of cyano before driving the pins in through pre-drilled holes. I treated myself to a pin pusher, which made fitting the pins much easier. I managed to go right through into my finger in one place. 1/8" is probably the limit of my pain threshold for such an incident.
The switch rails are now back in place so that I don't lose them. They will be fixed permanently once again in the very near future. The woodworking to mount all the operating cranks to fit to is coming along nicely and two lengths of telescoping brass tube have been almost entirely consumed making the pivots. This has been achieved over several days because there is only so much pipe cutter action that my wrists will take at once, aside from the inherent tedium of round and round and round and...
To avoid getting demotivated dug in crawling slowly forward on the uninteresting aspects I've painted up the lever frame in the correct colours in between. Some of the catch handles are stiff now. I expect once some of the paint has been worn away by the drop boxes it will start to operate more smoothly once again.
I also stumbled upon the ring that I cut to go around the turntable. Rather than misplace it for a further two years I cut it carefully to fit around the rails and gaps and fixed it into position.
TTFN.
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