Spy camera...
After messing around with the bell crank one of the holes broke out. It wasn't centered in the piece of brass. Since I had to remake the whole deal it gave me a chance to attach the pins by riveting them, instead of crushing them in pliers. I also found that the main crank was impinging on the cross beam.
Every time I crop a picture, this website turns it upside down. Doh!
I made a new bellcrank, and machined some more pins. One of the other mechanisms let go and I remade that one also. I ran out of the small brass rod and had to make lots of chips when carving down a big piece to 0.030" pin. I used my new Tap Matic brass cutting fluid to make the cuts nice and smooth. I used the cut off blade to do this by just plunge cutting in a series of bites until getting down to the finished size.
I again reassembled the whole affair and got pretty good range of motion. If I were to refine this further—and I'm not—I'd redo all the rest of the cranks and make them with the riveted pins.
Here's the new bell crank. If anything, it's certainly prettier.
This took a lot longer than I wanted. I lost at least two pins into the Quantum Rift. Seriously, I swept the floor twice and they were gone. So it was back to the lathe to make more. I got pretty good at making them. When I get my watch maker's taps and dies I'm going to experiment actually making my own miniature screws.
I did get the rest of the insulators made.
The last bit that needs to be done is the contact arms themselves. There are these aluminum plates that lie one over the other that serve to manage the arc on separation. I was planning on making the bars out of brass so I could solder thin brass supports to hold the aluminum arc management plates. Then I'm left with CA'ing the plates to the brass. I could make the plates out of brass and solder them too, but I would like to have the natural aluminum showing. It, like the bell cranks, will probably take multiple tries to get it right.
