Finished the pans last week. They were a lot easier to do than the cocks and required no brass patterns. Just a few measurements with a caliper. Each pan started as a chunk of steel 27mmx30mmx750mm.
Drill and cut away the corners.
Square up in the mill
Mill out the pan fence
Round the pan bottom to a straight sided 1/2cylinder.
Start sawing out the grove for the lock plate. Cut thin slices and break/chisel/file them off. This was the hardest part of the shaping. The grove must fit a round face lock plate. The bottom of the grove is 3mm at the top of the pan and 5mm at the bottom of the pan.
This picture shows the grove after sawing. As you can see the walls are straight. The bolster wall side is kept straight. The pan wall grove side must be slanted to fit the curve of the lock plate. This is done with patience and needle files.
I was not able to get a tight fit all the way around. But this will be fixed later.
Next, I separated the pan apron from the pan. Mark off 2,5mm all around the and start filing.
A coarse half round file does the job in less than an hour.
Superglue the pan to the lock plate. Drill and tap the pan screw.
Heat, remove the pan, cut off the front part of the bolster.
Mount the pan on the lock plate, glue the front part of the bolster to the plate. Drill three 1,5mm holes for pins.
The pins keep the front-end bolster in place during soldering. I used HI-FORCE 44™ SOLDER. This is a soft solder, not a brazing. I’ve kept the pins long. The plan is to remove this part of the bolster when the plate is to be case-harden. I’ll use the same solder to re-attach the bolster afterword’s. The pins insure correct placing. The temperature should give adequate tempering of the plate.
Take a punch and peen the gaps between the apron and the plate shut.
File the apron clean.
Round up the pan nose and finish shaping the fence and the rear bolster.
Mount on the lock plate and mill out the pan.
It took about 14 hours to make a pan.
The next part will be the frizzen. That can take awhile. Finished my vacation last week.
Best regards
Rolf
