Originally Posted by
tacfoley
Why?
Because these days, it's easy and comparatively cheap to do it on a hobby lathe.
I do many small bits and pieces for my trains on a forty-y/o Unimat SL - ie. a Stone-age hobby lathe. But being able to punch a bunch of co-ordinates into a reader and watch while your lathe/mill/whatever does it all for you has a certain appeal.
Especially of interest is the fact that it really isn't much more expense to add it to your [modern] lathe than getting another costy accessory for it. I had recourse to going around a number of precision engineer shops in the last year or so, trying to get a reasonable price and failed dismally in an effort to replicate the Ruger Old Army base pin/cylinder pin, which has an inherent weak point in the design. If I had ready access to the material, and carbide tools, I would have been able to make one for myself, but I had good interest and might have sold at east ten to folks here who had also had the bl**dy thing bent by clumsy reloading. As it turned out, the cheapest provider wanted £60+VAT EACH.
A skilled amateur may well be able to make a few in return for a reasonable recompense, rather than taking the pi$$.
tac
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