Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Lateral Adjust. Lever Replacement
Tom MacGregor
>I'm fixing up a K5 user & want to replace a damaged lateral adjustment lever. Removing the bad one is no problem and I have a replacement. Does anyone know the best way to rivet the new one on? Are correct rivets available, make one out of a finish nail, or what?
Re: Lateral Adjust. Lever Replacement
Bill Houghton, Summer fog in Sebastopol, CA
>I recall a recent repair by another Centralian who used a pop rivet.
Re: Lateral Adjust. Lever Replacement
woodburnbob
>I've done it a couple of times. I've read an old post or two, on WC or BP, where a guy's peening aim missed and the thin cast iron frog paid the price. It made me wonder how hard he was swinging his hammer. I wonder if he wasn't clamping his frog in some goofy way at the time.
You'll save yourself enormous hassle if you cut the rivet/pivot the right length to begin with, so you just have to peen and not also shorten the rod by peening. Any malleable metal will do. I think round and the right diameter would be best.
"Pre-peen" one end and insert. Or, not. That pre-peened end/head/lump will then be the only thing touching whatever you use as an anvil. A couple extra hands can help. Then you've just got to peen the other end semi-tight. You can use a small ball-peen hammer, or modified nail set with some other kind of hammer, or something like this to peen over a lip on the second rivet/pivot end. All pretty simple...but awkward.
Good luck.
Re: Lateral Adjust. Lever Replacement
Paul Erickson
>Hi Tom,
I used a pop rivet, and so far it seems fine. I did however
not allow the metal ball to pop off. I simply used the pop
rivit tool to snug the rivet down, and then pushed the center
pin out and carefully peened the rivet with an appropriately
sized punch.
cheers, Paul